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MRS. LIMBER’S RAFFLE 


OR, A CHURCH FAIR AND 
ITS VICTIMS 


A SHORT STORY 



WILLIAM ALLEN BUTLER 

ff 



NEW EDITION 







NEW YORK 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
1894 


Copyright, 1875, 1894, 

By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 


PEEFACE. 




The narrative of Mrs. Limber’s experience 
in the management of a church-fair raffle, as 
contained in the following pages, was published 
in 1876, anonymously, in order that the moral 
which it sought to enforce might stand on its 
own merits, free from any element, either of 
strength or weakness, attaching to personal ad- 
vocacy. The book was widely circulated, and its 
condemnation of raffling was not met by any ad- 
verse criticism or answered by any opposing ar- 
gument. A new edition of the story being called 
for, its authorship is avowed ; and attention may 
fitly be called to the great advance in sound pub- 
lic opinion on the subject of lotteries, during 
the eighteen years which have elapsed since its 
first publication. The scandalous attempt in 
Louisiana in 1890 to perpetuate, on an enor- 
mous scale, a lottery system for the benefit of 


IV 


PKEFACE. 


the State, with the intent of drawing its re- 
sources from the entire country, aroused a storm 
of indignation which swept away its local sup- 
ports, and fastened a brand of outlawry on an 
evil which is now denounced and prohibited by 
the Constitution of almost every State in the 
Union. 

Raffling, which is included in the prohibi- 
tion, still survives and flourishes, for the reason 
that the public conscience, while awakened to 
the evils of gambling on a large scale and in its 
grosser forms, winks at the same evil in its lesser 
proportions, partly as a peccadillo and partly from 
its serviceableness as an ally of benevolence — a 
bad means sanctifled by a good end. The sym- 
pathies of charitable women, especially, repel the 
idea of wrong or immorality as inhering in any- 
thing which stimulates the impulse of benevo- 
lence by the added zest of chance ; and accord- 
ingly they set aside the mandate of the law and 
the moral principle on which it rests, with a 
charming indifference to both, characteristic of 
their sex, which shrinks instinctively from im- 
purity and evil, but smilingly chaperones a seem- 
ingly innocent vice which not only leans to vir- 
tue’s side, but is obtrusively active in her service. 
Truth, thus wounded in the house of her friends. 


PKEFACE. 


V 


finds few defenders in the ranks of those whose 
special duty should be the education of the con- 
science and the conservation of morals. This re- 
sult is largely due to the inherent difficulty of 
asserting a moral principle which depends for its 
true acceptance upon a process of reasoning, and 
also to the ungraciousness of discouraging the 
efforts of well-meaning and benevolent people. 
Meanwhile the demoralization goes on ; boys and 
girls make their first essay in gambling by draw- 
ing some petty prize in the chances of a raffle ; 
and the general assent of the community is easily 
enlisted, on the plea of philanthropy or Christian 
charity, in aid of deliberate violations of a posi- 
tive law and an established moral principle. 

William Allei^" Butler. 

Round Oak, Yonkers, N. Y., May , 189 ^., 


I 



CONTENTS. 


PAOK 

Chap. I. — St. Parvus by Moonlight . . .6 

11. — Centuria . . . . 21 

TIL — Pat Looney’s Luck . . .84 

IV. — A Rubrical Rector . . . 4f 

Y. — Mr. Calendar’s Code . . .63 

VL— The Fair .... 76 

VII. — The Day after the Fair . . .92 

VIII. — Public Opinion in Spindle 107 

IX. — Fiat Justitia . . . .118 

X. — Apotheosis of Centuria . , 140 





MES. LIMBEE’S EAEELE. 


CHAPTER I. 

ST. PARVUS BY MOONLIGHT. 

Mrs. David Limber was a housekeeper with- 
out fear and without reproach. There was but 
one key to her storeroom, and she held it with a 
firm hand. She was an active manager, with 
a keen eye for dirt, a quick ear for all un- 
licensed sounds, and a sense of smell almost su- 
pernatural. Her good bargains were prover- 
bial, and she was a standard authority on butter. 
No one could excel her in that gift of domes- 
tic divination, by which experienced housewives 
can announce, at the first sound of the street- 
door bell, who is ringing it, and can detect the 
existence of “something burning,” or of un- 
fastened windows, or suspicious footfalls in distant 
corners of the house, at the dead of night, in 


6 


MRS. limber’s raffle. 


spite of all adverse presumptions, or of the crimi- 
nal indifference or apathy of husbands. 

Among other high prerogatives of Mrs. Lim- 
ber, was that of being, as she was in the habit of 
expressing it, “ the last one up in the house,” 
by which it is to be understood, not that she 
rose in the morning after every one else, but that 
she did not retire at night until the whole family 
was actually or constructively in bed. 

In the enjoyment of this privilege, Mrs. Lim- 
ber was seated, one Saturday evening, in her 
little up stairs sitting-room, in the absence of her 
husband, the only person in her spacious mansion 
who had not ended the week’s work or play and 
gone to bed. A hickory-fire, which the first Oc- 
tober frost had made a cheerful novelty on her 
hearth, gave out a glow in harmony with her 
own genial presence. A large basket, piled with 
stockings, was placed conveniently by her side, 
and, as she plied her needle with the quick cer- 
tainty of an expert in the art and mystery of 
darning, two unsolved enigmas occupied her 
thoughts — the first, where all the holes in the 
stockings came from'; and the second, why no 
one could mend them but herself. 

It was evident, however, that these questions 
were suggested by no bitterness of spirit, and 


ST. PAEVTJS BY MOONLIGHT. 


7 


that they would, if answered, have probably re- 
sulted in a quiet sense of satisfaction, on Mrs. 
Limber’s part, that her husband and children 
were pushing their way in the world, and she 
was helping them do it, for her face wore a smile, 
and her heart was in her work as really, if not as 
literally, as her hand. Seen at this moment by 
even the most unskilled physiognomist, Mrs. 
Limber would have appeared the embodiment of 
good sense and good temper, a fair-faced, free- 
hearted matron, blessed with a contented hus- 
band and healthy children, and with a will and 
a way of her own. This is precisely what she 
was. 

The hall-clock struck eleven. The clock in 
Mrs. Limber’s bedroom did the same, and so did 
the clock on her sitting-room mantel-piece. What 
Charles V. found it impossible to do, Mrs. Lim- 
ber had accomplished; her clocks struck to- 
gether. At the last stroke she paused in her 
work, folded away the nineteenth stocking, one 
only out of ten pair having been wonderfully pre- 
served from new rents, thanks to the strength of 
former darns, and laid it on the top of the pile, 
to which she gave a motherly pat with her broad, 
white palm. The final destination of this pre- 
cious basket was the top of the bureau in her 


8 


MRS. limber’s raffle. 


own bedroom, but just now she let it rest on the 
work-table at whicb she had been seated, while 
she opened the window, with the single intent of 
closing the outside blinds, according to her inva- 
riable habit, and as an indispensable preliminary 
to a quiet night’s rest. 

But this movement, so commonplace and me- 
chanical, was changed into a, gesture of surprise 
and delight as the opened window disclosed a 
scene in which the most familiar and ordinary 
objects were clothed with a beauty as rare as it 
was unexpected. The night was clear, and the 
moon, at its full, was at that instant transform- 
ing, by its magic touch, the prosaic manufacturing 
village of Spindle, upon which David Limber’s 
front-windows looked down, and in which his 
own factories were the most prominent objects, 
into one of the selectest nooks of fairy-land. The 
tall chimneys, the shingle roofs, the tinned cupo- 
la of the court-house, the church-spires, the black 
mass of railroad-buildings at the junction-depot — 
all took on a new aspect, and the surrounding 
hills and woods seemed for once in harmony with 
the quiet town, which was, in reality and by day- 
light, one of the noisiest and most obtrusive coun- 
ty seats and railway centres which the genius 
of modern improvement ever thrust into any 


ST. PAKVUS BY MOONLIGHT. 


9 


one of the many happy valleys of the Empiire 
State. 

Mrs. Limber’s eye rested on the whole moon- 
lit scene. Although much more given to the 
practical than the ideal, she did not, at that 
witching hour, stop to think how much of it 
was owned in fee by her husband, and subject, 
by virtue of her tender relation to him, to 
her own inchoate right of dower. Her unselfish 
gaze turned from the clustered factory-roofs and 
lingered on the sleeping village, resting with spe- 
cial satisfaction on the cross-tipped spire of the 
little church of St. Parvus. Wooden though it 
was, and somewhat out of the line of a true per- 
pendicular, it seemed to her a model of grace and 
proportion. The Grecian pediment of the First 
Presbyterian Church, it is true, was pure Pa- 
rian in the moonlight ; the square, brick tower 
of the Baptists, bathed in the silver sheen, was 
redeemed from its native ugliness ; even the 
Methodist Meeting-House, touched by the lunar 
beam, wore a tint better than that for which it 
had long been awaiting the painter’s brush ; 
while the Roman Catholic Church, planted at a 
respectful distance, but on a commanding emi- 
nence, seemed to catch and reflect, on its large 
gilt cross, more than its share of the impartial 


LO 


MRS. LBIBEr’s raffle. 


moonlight. But St. Parvus pierced the serene 
sky with the tallest steeple, and soared heaven- 
ward with a sense of conscious supremacy. So, 
at least, it seemed to Mrs. Limber. 

And yet, as she gave one last, loving glance, 
and gently drew the blinds together, secured the 
fastenings, turned the bolt of the sash, and then, 
after her immemorial habit, made a spasmodic 
effort to reopen the window, by way of making 
assurance doubly sure, Mrs. Limber heaved a 
sigh. This first sigh, like her last glance, was 
given to St. Parvus, and was inspired by the 
thought that, however bright its aspect by moon- 
light, its every-day condition was one of chronic 
and desperate poverty, so desperate that Mr. Lim- 
ber and his fellow-vestrymen were kept out of 
their houses and their beds on this very Saturday 
night to sit up with an incurable and exasperat- 
ing church debt, and to devise ways and means to 
be rid of it. No wonder it seemed to Mrs. 
Limber as disagreeable and troublesome as the 
strangled Hunchback In the “Arabian Nights,” 
a dead weight, not to be concealed or disposed 
of, with the fatal disadvantage of entire inability 
to lay it at the door of any other church. 

The utter indifference of the general popula- 
tion of Spindle, manufacturers, operatives and all. 


ST. PAUVUS BY MOONLIGHT. 


11 


to this pitiable condition of St. Parvus, was some- 
thing which Mrs. Limber, to use her own language, 
“never did and never could comprehend.” It 
confirmed her belief in the doctrine of total de- 
pravity that the superior privileges which were 
enjoyed at this exclusive shrine, on as favorable 
terms as those held out by any First or Second 
Presbyterian, any Wesleyan Methodist, any Free- 
will Baptist, or any Reformed Dutch Church, 
should attract so few adherents, while those rival 
societies were as strong in numbers and as easy 
in their finances as they were, according to Mrs. 
Limber’s ideas, unsound in doctrine. 

Equally incomprehensible, and not to be ac- 
counted for by any hypothesis, doctrinal or other- 
wise, was the way in which the worthy Rectot of 
St. Parvus, the Rev. Alban Chancel, ignored and 
dismissed from consideration, as he might have 
done some pestilent heresy or petty scandal, the 
depleted state of the finances of his church, pur- 
suing his weekly and daily round of ministerial 
duty with as much precision and with as comfort- 
able a sense of parochial independence as if the 
revenues of Old Trinity had been at his sole dis- 
posal. 

“ Mr. Chancel hardly seems to know that there 
is such a thing as a church debt,” Mrs. Limbei 


J2 MRS. limber’s raefle. 

had said to the rector’s wife, her bosom friend, 
as they diverged, in conversation one day, from 
the absorbing topics of dress and domestics to 
the distresses of St. Parvus. 

Mrs. Chancel was an invalid, but somewhat 
skilled in repartee. 

“ Do you think, my dear, that if Mr. Chancel 
were to borrow trouble the parish debt could be 
paid any sooner ? ” 

“ No,” said matter-of-fact Mrs. Limber ; “ but 
he does not seem to take it much to heart. Now, 
I always worry over a debt until it is paid.” 

“ Oh, if this were Mr. Chancel’s debt, I dare 
say he would worry over it, but, instead of his 
taking it to his heart, perhaps it would be as 
well for the pew-holders to take it to their pock- 
ets.” 

“ Of course, the parish owes the debt,” said 
Mrs. Limber, and the discourse of the ladies 
gravitated again toward the last item of domestic 
experience. ^ 

But, if the good rector and his wife bore the 
burden of the debt too lightly, it weighed heavi- 
ly enough on the soul of Mrs. Limber, the most 
faithful of his faithful flock. She was the cham- 
pion, though after a strictly feminine, unhistoric, 
and illogical fashion of her own, of the highest 


8T. PARVUS BY MOOIVLIGHT. 


13 


ecclesiasticism, and delighted in her reputation 
as an uncompromising church woman, who stood 
for Episcopacy in general, and St. Parvus in par- 
ticular, against all comers and all goers, as she 
would have stood for her husband and children, 
determined to do her whole duty even should she 
be left, like Dean Swift’s dearly-beloved Roger, 
the sole auditor of the rector’s exhortations. 

Of all the many contributions made to St. 
Parvus by this estimable parishioner, the most 
valuable was David Limber himself, whom she 
had brought over, bodily — and he was a good 
two hundred pounds weight — from the First 
Presbyterian Church and Dr. Flatfoot. There 
had been a former Mrs. Limber who was Presby- 
terian. She died, in the fifth year of her married 
life, leaving a boy, three years old, and an infant 
daughter. Her husband, seven years later, had 
married again, with the full consent and approba- 
tion of every man, woman, and child, in Spindle, 
capable of forming and expressing an opinion on 
the subject. This unanimity of sentiment was 
partly owing to the fact that Mr. Limber’s popu- 
larity was so great that, whatever he had chosen 
to do, short of marrying his grandmother, would 
have been presumptively right, but it was due 
even more to the real wisdom of his choice. 


14 


MES. LIMBEe’s EAFFLE. 


Everybody knew Martha Fleming, the only child 
of the old village doctor whose horse and chaise 
had stopped, at one time or another, at almost 
every door in the county before Spindle numbered 
a tithe of its present population, and whose pro- 
fessional repute, in spite of the inroads of young- 
er practitioners, had continued to the day of his 
death. His daughter had kept his house for 
many years, tenderly caring for him in his declin- 
ing days, and it was not until after his death 
that she would admit the idea of being more to 
any one else than she had been to him ; but 
when at twenty-six she married David Limber, 
the leading manufacturer of the place, only fifteen 
years her senior, and by right entitled to as good 
a wife as Spindle, or the world at large, could 
aflbrd, it was universally admitted, at all tea-tables 
and elsewhere, that she had done well and wise- 
ly. Not long after his second marriage, Mr. Lim- 
ber, who during a sober courtship had been a 
constant attendant at St. Parvus, was seated 
punctually at the head of the pew which his de- 
parted father-in-law had occupied whenever his 
Sunday rounds permitted. With a little aid 
from his wife, the new recruit, who had privately 
expressed his fears that he was “ rather stiff in 
the joints ” for the services of St. Parvus, was in 


ST. PAEVUS BY MOONLIGHT. 


15 


due time fully initiated as a churchman. He 
took kindly to the change, but showed symptoms 
of recusance when, at the end of a year, he 
found himself, on Easter Tuesday, suddenly meta- 
morphosed into a warden. 

“ There is no warrant for it in Scripture,” said 
he to the rector’s wife, whom Mrs. Limber had 
called to her aid in overcoming his scruples. 
“There’s a town clerk mentioned in the Acts, 
and a chamberlain, but never a warden or a ves- 
tryman.” 

“ And where,” said Mrs. Chancel, “ is mention 
made of a trustee or a synod ? ” 

This retort did not make his personal duty 
any clearer to Mr. Limber, but he yielded, at last, 
and soon ascertained that, whether warranted by 
Scripture or not, there was no uncertainty about 
the pecuniary obligations which his new functions 
imposed, and that there was, in this respect, a 
striking coincidence between the privileges of an 
Episcopal warden and a Presbyterian trustee. 

All these changes had happened a dozen 
years ago, as the stockings in Mrs. Limber’s bas- 
ket could attest, representing as they did — besides 
Sam, the eldest boy, now a college graduate and 
student in a metropolitan law-school, and his sis- 
ter Bessie, the children of the first marriage — 


16 


ME8. limber’s raffle. 


three little Limbers of a later growth, of whom 
the eldest was ten and the youngest four, all 
boys. 

The well-disciplined clocks • were about to 
stiike, in concert, half-past eleven, when Mr. Lim- 
ber’s step was heard at his front-door, and he 
was soon seated, with slippered feet, before the 
bed of coals which his wife had carefully gathered 
into a glowing heap. 

“ I am out of all patience, Martha,” said the 
tired warden, “ with these vestry -meetings. It 
is always the same old story, more debt and less 
money.” 

“ How much is wanted to clear off the debt ? ” 
asked Mrs. Limber, throwing a shovelful of ashes 
over the coals. 

“ Three thousand dollars to cover everything, 
including the assessment for opening Shuttle 
Street, and the rector’s salary to November 1st,” 
replied Mr. Limber, with as much precision as 
if he were reading the disagreeable figures to the 
assembled congregation. 

Mrs. Limber deposited another installment of 
ashes on the apex of the coal-heap, and flattened 
it with the back of the shovel. This was done 
with emphasis. She was about to surprise Mr. 
Limber with a statement. 


ST. PARVTJS BY MOONLIGHT. 17 

“ You may count upon Mrs. Chancel and me 
for a thousand, perhaps fifteen hundred dol- 
lars.” 

“ Where from ? ” inquired Mr. Limber. His 
monosyllables had a very skeptical tone. 

“From a church fair,” replied Mrs. Limber, 
tossing the remnant of the ashes on the extin- 
guished embers, and speaking with as much as- 
surance as if she had announced an entirely 
original and unprecedented, as well as infallible, 
remedy for all cases of ecclesiastical poverty. 

Her husband shook his head. “ A church 
fair, Martha, is a kind of pious fraud, which can 
be winked at when its object is to help along a 
mission-school, or a poor-hospital, or some strug- 
gling congregation in a wild parish, but for a 
congregation like our own, and in a community 
such as this, it would be too undignified. I had 
rather put my hand in my pocket and pay the 
whole debt myself.” 

And, so far as putting his hand in his pocket 
went, Mr. Limber suited the action to the word. 

“ Nonsense, husband ! ” said Mrs. Limber ; 
“ you shall do no such thing. It would be very 
foolish and very wrong. The people would de- 
pend upon you instead of depending on them- 
selves, and, as for dignity, poor and proud may 


18 


MES. LIMBEE S EAFFLE. 


do for private people, but it will not do for 
churches.” 

“ Any thing but a church fair,” said Mr. Lim- 
ber, still unconvinced. 

“ Except a church debt,” rejoined his wife. 

“ Church debts are bad enough, I admit, but 
they are honest debts — certainly ours is — while 
a church fair, or any fair, in fact, always seems 
to me like a contrivance to get a great deal of 
money for very little value, by putting off un- 
marketable goods on unwilling purchasers at ex- 
orbitant prices, on the pretense of doing good. 
False pretenses, I say.” 

“ It is lucky for you, husband,” said Mrs. Lim- 
ber, good-naturedly, “ that Mary Chancel isn’t 
here to hear you charging her and me with false 
pretenses. Our fair is to be conducted on the 
strictest business principles. We shall have over 
six weeks for preparation, and it will be just be- 
fore Christmas, so that everybody can buy pres- 
ents of us ; we shall have the best of goods, at 
fair prices — ” 

“ Which are always unfair interposed Mr. 
Limber — 

“ I mean moderate prices and you knew that 
well enough, so you need not trip me up ; but 
seriously, David, it will be an advantage to the 


ST. PAUVUS BY MOONLIGHT. 


19 


whole place. We shall get money, besides, from 
every one who has it to spend. The Presbyte- 
rians are the richest people in Spindle, and why 
should they have Christmas without paying toll 
.for it to the church ? ” 

“ It does seem to me,” said Mr. Limber, “ that 
Christmas is the last thing in the world to grudge 
to any one, even to Presbyterians, if they have 
the grace to keep it.” 

“ Then let them keep it like Christians,” said 
Mrs. Limber, “ instead of locking up their church- 
es and lighting up Christmas-trees which Mrs. 
Chancel says are relics of heathenism, handed 
down from the Roman saturnalia, when they light- 
ed wax-tapers in honor of the sun at this very 
season, and she says that, for all the religion there 
is in a Christmas-tree, you might as well give the 
children the Odes of Horace translated into words 
of one syllable.” 

I don’t know anything about the Odes of 
Horace,” said Mr. Limber, “nor about Saturn, 
except that T believe he devoured his children, 
and it strikes me that Mr. Chancel might as well 
trv to gobble up all the Presbyterian boys and 
girls as to undertake to cut down their Christmas- 
trees. But I am half asleep, and the clock is just 
going to strike twelve.” 


20 


MES. LIMBEE’s EAFFLE. 


“ I am wide awake,” said Mrs. Limber, “ but 
we must try to get down to breakfast earlier on 
Sunday morning, and going to bed after midnight 
is hardly the way to do it.” 

She took up her basket and looked lovingly 
at the pile of stockings, as she followed her hus- 
band. 

“ After all,” she said, “ my evening’s work 
was harder than yours : 

‘ A man may work from sun to sun, 

But a woman’s work is nerer done.’ 

Twenty stockings and only one without a hole. 
Dear me 1 what shall we do with these children’s 
toes?” 


CHAPTER II. 


CENTUKIA. 

It was one of the sayings of Spindle that the 
Limbers never did anything by halves. David 
Limber was a practical manufacturer, with a 
genius for invention which helped him to reduce 
the cost and enhance the quality of his fabrics, 
and fitted him for a competition with rival mill- 
owners by which he became used to transactions 
on a large scale, and to very liberal ways. Mrs. 
Limber, with a constitutional distrust of all retail 
weights and measures, preferred unbroken pack- 
ages and uncut pieces. There was thus an air of 
profusion about their way of doing things w’hich 
inspired respect. David Limber was justly reck- 
oned by his fellow-townsmen a wdiole-souled man, 
and Mrs. Limber was rated as a whole-souled 
woman— enviable titles, inasmuch as men and 
women with whole souls were as rare in Spindle 
as they usually are in other manufacturing or un- 
manufacturing communities. 


22 


MRS. limber’s raffle. 


It was no wonder, then, that when Mrs. Lim- 
ber came in her own proper person to the rescue 
of St. Parvus, and was officially announced in the 
Spindle Freebooter as the promoter and chief pa- 
troness of a fair, to be held in her owm spacious 
parlors, and which was to be the most attractive 
entertainment of the approaching holiday season 
as well as the most effectual means of relief for a 
deserving object, it seemed to everybody the most 
natural thing in the world, and the most certain 
of success. The beaux'and belles of Spindle were 
on the alert for a new social sensation, and the 
most satisfactory results of the enterprise were 
assured in advance, just as an expected financial 
movement is discounted by the bulls and bears 
of Wall Street. Volunteers flocked to Mrs. Lim- 
ber’s standard, and her arrangements were soon 
completed. 

“ We are making splendid progress,” said Mrs. 
Limber to her husband, as she filled his coffee-cup 
at the breakfast-table, one Monday morning early 
in December ; “ Sam is our treasurer, and Bessie 
our in-door manager. The stores sell us goods at 
wholesale prices, and give liberal donations be- 
sides. We have a special agent who is making 
purchases in New York and Albany, and securing 
consignments of Christmas goods for sale on com- 


CENTURIA. 


23 


mission. We are to have a post-office, a Sibyl to 
tell fortunes, a lovely blonde for an Undine, and 
half a dozen brunettes for a gypsy camp, a foun- 
tain of lemonade with several Rebeccas, a Punch 
and Judy, a conjurer, a picture-gallery, a pavilion 
for refreshments, a score of flower-girls, and last 
but not least a hundred-dollar doll, Mrs. Chancel’s 
special contribution, direct from Paris, with a 
wardrobe complete.” 

Mr. Limber had not paid much attention to 
his wife’s list of attractions, but he pricked up 
his ears at the mention of the last item in the 
catalogue. 

“ Who wants a hundred-dollar doll ? ” he in- 
quired. 

“ Any one who can get it. The doll is really 
a work of art. She is to be raffled for at a dollar 
a chance, one hundred chances.” 

“Bessie,” said Sam, pausing over his tenth 
buckwheat cake, “ I will give you a name for that 
doll.” 

“ What’s in a name ? ” said Miss Bessie, who 
was just at the age of the most familiar quota- 
tions. 

“There is one hundred dollars in the name I 
am about to propose. If she is to command a hun- 
dred, she is a female centurion, and taking a slight 


24 


MBS. limber’s raffle. 


liberty with terminations, I christen her ‘ Centu- 
ria,’ which you see has this great advantage, be- 
sides its evident appropriateness, that, when her 
expensive wardrobe is to be marked, the initial 
C. will stand at once for her name and her price.” 

“ What a very smart boy our brother Sam is ! ” 
exclaimed Bessie ; “ I wonder if we couldn’t ex- 
hibit him as a separate department of the fair, 
and rajGle him ofiP at the end ? ” 

“ Not at a dollar a chance,” said Sam, return- 
ing to his buckwheats. 

“ Mother,” said Mr. Limber, laying down his 
knife and fork, with great deliberation, and look- 
ing seriousljT^ at his wife, “ do you really mean to 
have raffling at this fair ? ” 

“ Certainly,” said Mrs. Limber, in her cheer- 
ful, positive tone. 

“I am very sorry,” said her husband. “I 
think you ought not to allow it.” 

“ I do not agree with you, husband. I cannot 
see any harm in a raffle at such a fair as this is to 
be ; they have them at all the church fairs, and 
they contribute to the enjoyment, and bring in 
money which we need so much.” 

She said this so sweetly, and out of the abun- 
dance of a heart so full of charity, and a conscience 
so void of offense, that David Limber was on the 


OENTUEIA. 


25 


point of dropping the subject, without further 
question or protest, but he found himself impelled 
by a vague sense of disquiet, rather than by any 
well-defined motive, to hazard a fresh objection. 

“I think, at least I have an impression, 
that raffling is a wrong thing — morally wrong, 
I mean.” 

“ Really,” said Mrs. Limber, “ I don’t see and 
I can’t see how a thing can be wrong that is sim- 
ply and solely to do good, and that too for the 
church.” 

“ But even for the church,” urged Mr. Limber, 
“ ought you to do good in a bad way ? ” 

“ How can a way be bad which leads straight 
to a good end ? ” rejoined his wife ; “the money 
goes just as directly into the treasury of the 
church by the raffle as it does by the plate you 
pass round on Sunday, and every one who gives 
has value received in the one case as much as in 
the other.” 

“I believe,” said Mr. Limber, shifting his 
ground, “ that raffling is against the law.” 

“ Oh, I don’t know anything about the law,” 
said Mrs. Limber, “ and, if it comes to that, a 
thousand things are against the law, such as wood- 
cock before the Fourth of July, or paying more 
than seven per cent, or six per cent., which is it, 


26 


aiES. lbibee’s raffle. 


for borrowed money, and, when I was in New 
York last month, Mr. Bullion told me he had been 
fined five dollars for having a dead dog carted 
from the avenue in front of his house — that was a 
violation of the health law, and one of his neigh- 
bors had to tear down a new bay-window — that 
was a violation of the fire laws ; and things have 
come to such a pass that it is against the law for 
men, in some places, not for women to be sure, 
to work more than eight hours a day. Law in- 
deed ! ” said Mrs. Limber, pressing her evident ad- 
vantage, “ what kind of laws can we expect, when 
you send such fellows to Albany to make them 
as Jack Filch, a do-nothing and know-nothing, 
without an honest hair in his head ; and, after one 
winter in the Legislature, his wife told Jane By- 
ass, the dressmaker, that she wanted her dresses 
to out-trim every lady in Spindle, Mrs. Limber in- 
cluded ; those were her identical words — and that 
reminds me, Bessie,” continued Mrs. Limber in 
the same breath, suddenly changing her position, 
and giving the subject under discussion literally 
a cold shoulder, “ that Mrs. Byass has not sent 
home that pink silk which you were to have had 
'without fail last Saturday night. You must go 
for it yourself directly after breakfast. Dear me 1 
what shall we do with these dressmakers ? ” 


CENTUEIA. 


27 


During Mrs. Limber’s remarks her husband 
had wisely resolved to abandon his attack upon 
the raffle for the present, and to renew it at the 
dinner-table, trusting to his ability to reenforce 
his own views by some opinions or arguments to 
be gained from authoritative sources in the inter- 
val. He was therefore well pleased with Mrs. 
Limber’s sudden diversion, and rising from the 
table he took leave of her in his usual affectionate 
way, and hurried to his factory and the varied 
occupations of the day, which embraced a wider 
range than the circle of his own affairs, for no 
one in Spindle held so many places of trust as 
David Limber. 

Dinner was wellnigh dispatched when, with 
what seemed to him a bold plunge, he opened 
upon Mrs. Limber with the query — 

“ My dear, have you consulted Mr. Chancel 
about this raffling project ? ” 

“ Dear, no ! I should as soon think of con 
suiting him about the pattern of a polonaise.” 

It seems to me that the clergyman of a par- 
ish ought to be the very best person to decide 
whether a thing which his parishioners are going 
to do for the benefit of the church is right or 
wrong.” 

“ Oh, in the abstract, I dare say — anything, for 


28 


MBS. limber" 8 RAFFLE. 


instance, that could go into a sermon or about 
which there is an article of religion, or a decree 
of a council, or something of that sort — but how 
perfectly absurd it would be to preach about 
raffling ! Besides, dear, good Mr. Chancel is just 
as ignorant about practical, every-day matters 
and what people ought to do and ought not to 
do as ministers always are. You know, husband, 
he is as innocent as a babe. Mrs. Chancel says 
herself that he is such a piece of perfection that 
she has to do things every now and then that are 
the least bit wicked just to keep up his belief in 
original sin.” 

“ Tf she can’t keep him sound in the faith on 
that doctrine,” said Sam aside to Bessie, “ no- 
body can.” 

“ For shame, Sam ! Mrs. Chancel ‘ is all my 
fancy painted her.’ She’s lovely, she’s — ” 

“ When your fancy paints her tongue,” said 
Sam, “ I will let you have my sharpest razor for 
a model. It is one of the kind that ‘ works deceit- 
fully’ sometimes.” 

‘‘ Be quiet, Sam, I want to hear what papa is 
saying.” 

“ I was talking with Mr. Proser this morn- 
ing,” Mr. Limber went on to say with consider- 
able emphasis, “ about raffling ; and he thinks it 


CENTUEIA. 


29 


should be wholly condemned, on principle. He 
regards it as very pernicious. He says it is 
against divine law and human law.” 

“ Mr. Proser is a Presbyterian,” said Mrs. 
Limber, with her usual cheerful terseness when 
on the defensive. 

“ For all that, I suppose a Presbyterian can 
form an opinion and give information on moral 
subjects.” 

“ Oh, to be sure ; as for information, no one 
can give more than they can. That is what Mrs. 
Chancel says about Presbyterian clergymen, that 
they are always imparting information, even in 
their prayers, where there is certainly the least 
need of it ; and Dr. Flatfoot spends nearly as 
much time in reading notices as Mr. Chancel does 
in delivering his sermon.” 

“ Mr. Proser is not a clergyman,” said Mr. 
Limber, “ but he is certainly a most upright, ex- 
cellent man, as everybody knows.” 

“ So he is,” said Mrs. Limber heartily, as if it 
was a joy to her to speak the best she could, even, 
of Presbyterian human kind, “ he is just as good 
as he can be, and as patient as Job v/ith those 
harum-scarum children of his, but he is not re- 
sponsible for all Spindle, nor is he infallible, so 
far as I know. As Mrs. Chancel says, his good • 
3 


MRS. LIMBER^ S RAFFLE. 


ness is of the nitro-glycerine sort — you can’t 
come in contact with it without its exploding and 
blowing you to bits.” 

“ But, my dear, Mr. Proser is a man of great 
experience, his views are entitled to respect ; he 
is an elder in the church, he has been to the Gen- 
eral Assembly, and he knows what he speaks 
about. He says that raffling is gambling, and a 
raffle is a lottery’, and he can see no difference or 
distinction between the two.” 

“ None so blind as those who won’t see,” 
said Mrs. Limber ; “ Mr. Proser will never forgive 
me because you chose to leave Dr. Flatfoot 
and become a churchman. He can make differ- 
ences and distinctions fast enough when he 
chooses. He thinks it sinful to take a glass of 
wine at a wedding, but you ought to see him de- 
vour brandy-peaches and tipsy-cake when he can 
get them. He thought it was dreadful to go to 
see Ristori in ‘Queen Elizabeth,’ but he sends 
his family in a body to the Hippodrome and 
the Minstrels. There’s a nice distinction ! But, 
as Mrs. Chancel says, there are some people who 
will make a wry face over a quadrille and gulp 
down a circus.” 

“ My dear Martha,” said Mr. Limber, “ I have 
no doubt Mrs. Chancel is a good woman, but 1 


CENTUEIA. 


31 


do wish you would not quote her all the time. 
With all her sharpness she can’t lift her own 
baby, and I’ll be bound she doesn’t darn her hus- 
band’s stockings. If I am wrong about this 
matter, I will stand corrected, but I don’t want 
to be pelted with Mrs. Chancel’s smart speeches. 
I would rather have a pound of your plain home- 
spun common-sense than a bale of her sar- 
casms.” 

Feathered with this touch of flattery, Mr. 
Limber’s shaft, aimed apparently at Mrs. Chancel, 
found its way to his wife’s heart. She laughed 
good-humoredly as she replied : 

“ Why, husband, I thought Mrs. Chancel was 
your particular admiration. She is all the time 
sending her love to you. As for lifting that little 
Dicky, I think she might do it now and then if 
she would make an effort, but I should be quite as 
well satisfied if she kept his face clean, poor child ! 
And now I think of it, speaking of children, I 
promised to look up old Widow Riley and those 
orphan grandchildren of hers. They have posi- 
tively nothing to eat. I must go there before 
dark. Do give me some money to leave with 
them.” 

Mr. Limber produced his pocket-book and re- 
sponded to his wife’s appeal. He could not 


82 


IVtRS. limbek’s baffle. 


retrace the precise steps by which the result had 
been reached, but he was conscious that his pro- 
mulgation of Mr. Proser’s views on raffling had, 
by some succession of ideas, led to a contribution 
of five dollars for the benefit of a deserving fam- 
ily and to nothing else. Mrs. Limber, however, 
seemed entirely satisfied, and, with the money in 
her hand and a kiss on her lips, she parted from 
her husband intent for the time being upon her 
charitable errand. 

“Come and take a look at Centuria,” said 
Bessie to her brother Sam, when they were alone 
in the dining-room, “ here she is in the bottom of 
the cabinet ; ” and by the opening of the doors the 
waxen beauty was disclosed, in all the plenitude 
of her Parisian toilet. 

“The true girl of the period,” said Sam, 
“ chatelaine and all ; what an assortment she has 
dangling there — a fan nearly as large as herself, 
an umbrella, a watch, an opera-glass, vinaigrette, 
card-case, pencil, reticule, eye-glass ! — why don’t 
you hook on a prayer-book, Bessie ? Somebody 
may mistake her for a Methodist.” 

“ Not with that point-lace trimming on her 
dress,” said Bessie ; “they say that belonged once 
on a time to the Empress Eugenie.” 

“ How did Mrs. Chancel ever come into pos- 


CENTUEIA. 


33 


Bession of this supremely ridiculous piece of per- 
sonal property ? ” inquired Sam. 

“ Some fine lady of her acquaintance picked it 
up in Paris at a sale, and, hearing about our fair, 
has sent it to Mrs. Chancel, who makes it her 
special contribution. That is the storj", I believe ; 
‘ I tell the tale as ’twas told to me.’ But dear 
Sam, do you know I am half sorry we have the 
doll on our hands. I have an idea that some- 
thing disagreeable will happen. Papa seems so 
opposed to raffling.” 

“ What did Mrs. Chancel say when she heard 
of his objections ? ” 

“ She said that some people’s consciences 
were like her boy Dicky, always waking up and 
creating a disturbance when they ought to be 
quietl}" asleep. I think that was very disre- 
spectful to papa, don’t you ? and besides, it was 
hardlj' kind to say of Dicky.” 

“ Dicky,” said Sam, “ is not too young, it seems, 
to point a moral, though he is too ugly to adorn 
a tale. Mrs. Chancel did not mean to be disre- 
spectful to papa, but she does not intend to be 
interfered with. The raffle is decreed, and to 
abandon it now would be like giving up one of 
the thirty-nine articles.” 


CHAPTER in. 

PAT looney’s luck. 

Mrs. Limber’s visit of mercy had carried light 
and love into a dark place. She came home with 
the reflected glow still lingering on her face, and 
with thoughts of kindness and sympathy filling 
her heart. Mr. Limber being occupied with some 
business visitors, she went earlier than usual to 
her bedroom. On entering, she was surprised to 
find 'Bridget, a housemaid of several years’ stand- 
ing, the most trusted of her servants, engaged in 
smoothing pillows already as smooth as pillows 
could be, placing chairs in position, and doing 
other unnecessary things with evident embar- 
rassment. Mrs. Limber’s divination-cap was on 
in a moment. She scented trouble. Her thoughts 
flew at once from their tranquil height to the dead 
level of domestic cares. 

“ Bless me, Bridget, what is it ? ” 

‘‘ Please, ma’am,” said the girl, dropping a 
half courtesy, “ I was just waiting-like for you, to 


PAT looney’s LUCK. 


35 


give you warning that I’m leaving when my 
month’s up, and it’s up next Monday, it is.” 

“ What do you mean, Bridget ; has any thing 
gone wrong down-stairs ? 

“ Oh, no, ma’am,” said Bridget, brightening 
into confidence in her haste to repel any such 
idea ; “ I have no fault to find with any one in 
the house, leastways yourself, and Mr. Limber is 
an awful nice gentleman, he is, and the children 
are all good, and Miss Bessie is a fine young lady, 
and Mr. Sam — ” 

“ Well, what in the world takes you out of a 
good place ? Perhaps it is nothing, after all.” 

Bridget grasped the solid foot-board of the 
bedstead, and looked down on the carpet; at 
last she mustered courage to say, without look- 
ing at her mistress : 

“ It’s Pat Looney, ma’am.” 

“ Pat Looney ! ” Mrs. Limber gave the name 
an inflection which operated somewhat after the 
manner of a patent corkscrew in making an open- 
ing for Bridget’s pent-up feelings. She looked 
up, and they flowed freely. 

“ Yes, ma’am, Pat Looney, you mind, him as 
was always speaking for me, and it’s three years 
we have kept company, and now he wants to be 
married next week, and — ” 


MRS. limber’s raffle. 


3t) 


“ You marry that shiftless fellow ! Bridget, 
you ought to be ashamed of yourself — a nice, 
tidy, capable girl like you. Why, he hasn’t done 
a stroke of work this twelvemonth. I have seen 
him hanging around the Spindle Shades, the low- 
est kindi of a drinking-place, and I wonder he 
hasn’t been killed outright in some drunkeU 
brawl ! Have you lost your senses, Bridget ? ” 

“Well, ma’am, Pat has been idle at times 
like, which it is a weakness in his bones and 
pains, and his being there was all along of a light- 
ness in his head ; and that is gone now, and he 
has just come to his luck, ma’am, and he can live 
without work if he chooses.” 

“How can Pat Looney live without work? 
If he is an honest man he cannot do it.” 

“ Please, ma’am, maybe Pat wouldn’t like me 
to be telling it, but it’s a lady you are, and you 
wouldn’t get me into trouble, and it’s himself 
that has drawn a prize on his policy-ticket, he 
has, and he has got the money, he has, and it’s in 
the bank, it is, and it’s three thousand dollars, it 
is, ma’am.” 

“ Drawn a prize in the lottery ! ” cried Mrs. 
Limber ; “ three thousand dollars on a policy- 
office ticket, and now you mean to marry him I 
vVhy, Bridget, I never heard of such a thing in 


37 


PAT looney’s luck. 

all the days of my life. It is sheer, downright 
madness. The man will go to destruction, and 
drag you down with him, as sure as you live, 
and you will never have a day’s peace. Those 
policy-shops are the vilest places in the world, 
and drawing a prize in them is worse than losing 
your money, because a man never does a day’s 
work after he has once drawn a prize; and, like 
drinking, it goes on from bad to worse I Before 
I would marry that man, Bridget, if I were you, 
I would scrub the cross-walk in the middle of 
Main Street on my bare knees in broad day- 
light ! ” 

“ But, indeed, Pat has done no wrong,” said 
Bridget, whose self-possession was wholly re- 
stored by Mrs. Limber’s violent onslaught ; “ sure 
it was his own money he paid for the policy, and 
he took his chance with the rest, and if Pat Loo- 
ney’s luck is better than theirs, where’s the harm, 
and him with his mother to help ; and it was for 
a good end like, if it was to help him to marry, 
for the priest says a good wife is from the Lord, 
though it’s meself that says it, and the end scari- 
fies the means, he says.” 

“ Sanctifies the means, Bridget,” said Mrs, 
Limber, “ and that is nothing else than a false 
Jesuit doctrine ; and as for Pat Looney’s luck, it 


38 


MBS. limber's raffle. 


is all chance and a wild-goose chase ; the next 
time he will lose everything he has got, and more 
besides.” 

“ But you see, ma’am, it was all along partly 
because of Pat’s vow, it was.” 

“ What vow could he possibly make about 
such a wicked thing as a lottery-policy ? Vow, 
indeed ! ” said Mrs. Limber, in a blaze at Pat’s 
profanity. 

“ Sure and it was a vow that he would give 
five dollars to the church out of every hundred 
dollars, if his ticket was ludiy, and he has kept 
his vow sacred, and it’s meself that is just after 
coming from the priest, , and Pat counted the 
money into his hand, and he gave us his blessing, 
he did, and a good man is Father Mahoney, and 
it’s good to us both his blessing will do.” 

“ Bridget, this is horrible,” said Mrs. Limber, 
“ to go and throw yourself away in this fashion, 
and then to mix up religion and vows and the 
church with these dreadful policy-shops 1 I do 
think Father Mahoney ought to be ashamed of 
himself, but it’s all of a piece — like people like 
priest. You marry that man, and you are a 
ruined girl. Your husband will be a gambler 
and a drunkard all his days, and perhaps a bur- 
glar or a murderer, and he will end in the State- 


PAT looney’s luck:. 


39 


prison or on the gallows. This is just as certain 
as the sun is to rise ; gamblers will stake their 
money, and their wives, and their children, and 
their own souls, until every thing is lost. If I 
had known or suspected that any girl in my house 
was mixed up with such wickedness, I should 
have dismissed her on the spot, the moment I 
found it out. I hope to goodness he has never 
brought any of his hateful lottery-tickets into this 
house ! ” 

“ And indeed, ma’am,” said Bridget, turning 
on her heel and gi\fing her head a toss, “ it’s very 
hard you are on poor Pat for drawing as honest 
a prize as ever was drawed in a lottery, seeing 
you are going to have one yourself, by what I 
hear, to keep your own priest’s head above water, 
which it is himself can’t do at all ; and it is a true 
saying, that ‘people who live in glass houses 
shouldn’t throw stories at their neighbors.’ ” 

And Bridget sailed ont of the room and down 
the hall before Mrs. Limber could recover her 
breath. 

“ Is the girl crazy ? ” she said to herself, and 
then, as the full meaning of her parting words 
dawned upon her, she added, more amused than 
indignant, “ was there ever such impudence ? 
Our innocent little raffle, for the best of causes, 


4:0 MRS. mrBEE’s RAFFLE. 

compared to a vulgar lottery ! You might as well 
compare our Sam to Pat Looney.” 

And, as Mrs. Limber, with a little more vigoi 
and rapidity than usual, loosened her dress and 
jerked off her undersleeves, she relieved her 
feelings with the exclamation : 

“ Dear me ! what shall we do with these Bid- 
dies ? ” 


CHAPTER IV. 


A RUBRICAL RECTOR. 

Mr. Limber, without knowing that his con- 
science was like Master Dicky Chancel, found 
it a very restless companion. It kept up a per- 
petual buzzing, like one of the great fly-wheels 
of his own factory, and set in motion all manner 
of doubts and questionings as to the propriety 
of the raffle, and new reasons why he ought to 
bestir himself in opposition, in spite of Mrs. Lim- 
ber’s positive olff-hand assurances in its support. 

“ There is no use in arguing or contending 
with the women when they are bent on having 
their own way,” was his sensible conclusion after 
a long course of reflection. “ 1 will try Mr. Chan- 
cel myself. If I am wrong, perhaps he will set 
me right ; and, if I am right, he must interfere 
and put a stop to Mrs. Limber’s rafile. I ought 
to have gone to him before.” 

The little rectory adjoined the church of St. 
Parvus, and in fact was connected with its rear 


42 


MRS. miBER'S RAFFLE. 


by an old woodshed, to which Mr. Chancel, with 
the aid of the village carpenter, had striven to 
impart the air of a medisBval cloister, but with 
indifferent success. The rector’s study was on 
the ground-floor, and commanded a view of his 
front-gate. In this study, somewhat scantily 
equipped so far as as his professional needs were 
concerned, the most imposing article of furniture 
was the worthy rector himself. He was not a tall 
man nor a large man, nor w’as there anything 
striking in the expression of his smoothly -shaved 
face, his broad forehead, or his rather dull blue 
eye. But he was intensely clerical in his ap- 
pearance, and carried himself as thorfgh he w^as 
perpetually in full view of a congregation. In- 
tellectually he was afflicted with a mild confu- 
sion of ideas respecting the cure of souls, church 
creeds, communions, forms, and furniture, under 
the force of which he had gravitated into that 
extreme wing of the church militant which, by 
its own movements, has most effectually severed 
its communications with Christian charity and 
common - sense. His small, natural light had 
thus been hopelessly hid under a bushel of the 
densest ecclesiasticism. Mrs. Chancel herself 
was accustomed to say that he had been let down 
from the surface of the earth at an early age into 


A RTJBEICAL EECTOE. 


43 


a church school, and then a little deeper into a 
church college, and then deeper still into a theo- 
logical seminary, from the lowest depths of which 
he had tunneled off into a succession of clerical 
employments on the same dead level ; and while 
wandering in these catacombs she had fallen in 
with him, and he had married her, which, the 
lively lady always added, he nev’^er would have 
done had he seen her by daylight. 

Aside from the injustice to herself, Mrs. 
Chancel’s description was hardly overdrawn. 
Her good husband, not content with the quiet 
duties and rewards of his country cure, fancied 
himself a theologian and a polemic, and was 
best satisfied when excavating in some contract- 
ed and subterranean vein, which had its local fire- 
damp, and occasional explosions, but rarely ena- 
bled him to make any contribution to the upper 
world, beyond an occasional fossil or the verte- 
brae of some extinct animal. And yet, at heart, 
and when off his rickety stilts as a High-Church- 
man, Mr. Chancel was a good fellow, fond of a 
quiet joke, true to his high function, and yet 
easily remitted to the good things of this life, of 
which, in truth, he had but a short allowance, and 
even priding himself on his skill in brewing a 
kind of patristic punch, which in his earlier days 


44 


MRS. limber’s raffle. 


was in great vogue in certain thirsty corners of 
those same catacombs whereof Mrs. Chancel 
spoke. 

Mr. Limber’s appearance at the rectory-gate, 
in the forenoon of a week-day, was almost as 
great a surprise to Mr. Chancel as if one of the 
early fathers, whose devotion to the church he 
humbly strove to emulate, had suddenly de- 
scended to the sidewalk. His first impulse was 
to rush up-stairs and exchange his morning 
dressing-gown for the rigid clerical ccstume, by 
which he endeavored in his daily walk to inspire 
the people of Spindle with a due reverence for 
the cloth. But Mr. Limber had already caught 
sight of the rector, and was on the porch. The 
magnetism of his genial presence drew Mr. Chan- 
cel to the door, which he threw wide open to 
give free entrance and welcome to his parish- 
ioner. 

‘‘ My dear sir, this is an unusual, an unex- 
pected pleasure. Walk into my study ; will you 
seat yourself in this easy-chair? I trust Mrs. 
Limber is well, and your lovely family, Yo\i 
appear to be enjoying your usual excellent 
health.” 

Mr. Limber reciprocated these cordial greet 
ings, and seated himself with more than ordinary 


A RUBRICAL RECTOR. 


45 


deliberation, feeling quite at a loss how to in- 
troduce the topic which had induced his visit. 

But the worthy rector was eager to seize the 
opportunity of inte-resting his visitor in the line 
of excavation which he had immediately in 
hand. 

“ You find me hard at work, Mr. Limber,” 
said he, waving his hand in deprecation of the 
disordered state of his study, and his ovm unpre- 
sentable attire, various portions of which indi- 
cated that, though Mrs. Chancel’s needle might 
be as sharp as her tongue, it was not as ready for 
active service ; “ I am engaged on the sixth ser- 
mon in mj' course on the rubric, which I may 
mention to you in confidence will be extended to 
twelve, and which I propose to give to the 
church, I may say the world, under the title of 
‘ Caput Ecclesiae, or the Rubric reinstated,’ the 
chief title, as you perceive, being an adaptation, 
I trust not inapt, of the ancient ecclesiological 
designation of that part of the church in which 
the altar, I will not say high altar, w^as erected 
according to the canons of Gothic architecture, 
and the minor, or sub-title, indicating the great 
need of the church at the present time — the 
need of what we may call, Mr. Limber, a new 
rubrication. I trust, sir, you are alive to the im- 
4 


46 


MES. LIMBEe’s EAEFLE. 


portance of this great subject. You stand by 
the rubric, do you not, Mr. Limber ? ” 

“It is rather fine print,” said Mr. Limber, 
evading the question. 

“Yes,” said the rector, with increasing ani- 
mation. “ Lamentably true. ‘ Rubric,’ Mr. Lim- 
ber, is an equivalent term for ‘ Law.’ The an- 
cient Romans, as you perhaps remember, enti- 
tled their laws with red letters, and yet the mod- 
ern Church abandons this most essential symbol- 
ism, and the rubric is seen in black, a symbol 
itself of a degeneracy from which I hope to take 
a humble part in rescuing the Church. The ru- 
bric should be in large, conspicuous Gothic char- 
acters, and in the original color w^hich belongs to 
it; you say well, Mr. Limber. T rejoice in the 
incidental confirmation of my views afforded by 
your wise suggestion.” 

“I was not aware,” said Mr. Limber ; “that 
you laid so much stress on the rubric. I thought 
it was your sailing directions, so to speak. I did 
not suppose it was chart and compass.” 

“ The common error,” said the rector ; “ rubii- 
city, Mr. Limber, is the sheet-anchor of the Church. 
Take a single but conclusive example, the deplor- 
able abuse of joint communion between church- 
men and non-churchmen. The rubric is explicit 


A RTJBEICAL RECTOR. 


47 


here and settles the case. It reads, ‘ And there 
shall none be admitted to the Holy Communion 
until such time as he be confirmed or ready and 
desirous to be confirmed.’ Now let us throw it 
into the form of a syllogism : no one can confirm 
but the bishop, consequently no one can right- 
fully commune unless confirmed by the bishop, 
consequently only confirmed persons can com- 
mune together. Here you have the grand prin- 
ciple of church exclusion, Mr. Limber ; but let 
me read you an extract from my sermon on which 
I am now engaged, in which I undertake to de- 
monstrate that the commandments, although read 
according to the rubric of our Church at the right 
side of the altar or ‘ table ’ as our Prayer-Book 
unfortunately has it, and not at the north side, 
according to the rubric of the mother-Church, are 
virtually read in the same place, inasmuch as in 
either case, by tradition and ecclesiastical under- 
standing, the place where the altar stands is theo- 
retically the east, and therefore — ” 

Mr. Limber’s internal fly-wheel was buzzing 
with immense velocity. He made an effort and 
broke in abruptly : 

“ My dear Mr. Chancel, pray let me hear that 
another time. I ran in, at an odd moment, to 
speak with you about the church fair which the 


ivres. mcBER’s raffle. 

ladies are getting up^ You know about it, I pre- 
sume.” 

“ Certainly,” replied Mr. Chancel, depositing 
his manuscript on the table with evident reluc- 
tance. “ I am aware that it is in contemplation 
and preparation. A most meritorious service. 
Church fairs are of great antiquity. Like the 
rubric, they are of Roman origin, as the name in- 
dicates — feria^ a holiday. Servius Tullius, I be- 
lieve, established a fair at which the laws were 
proclaimed ; afterward they were consecrated by 
being appointed on saints’ days, and you may 
remember that, by royal grant, the Bishop of 
Winchester received the revenues of the fair of 
St. Giles, which lasted for sixteen days, during 
which all merchants who sold wares in the city or 
within seven, some say seventeen miles of it, for- 
feited them to the bishop. A noble tribute to 
the Church, Mr. Limber.” 

“ Rather an impracticable one in our day,” 
said Mr. Limber, hastening forward several cen- 
turies and bringing the conversation directly to 
the day and date then present ; “ but about this 
fair of our ladies, which I suppose is all well 
enough meant, it seems to me that there is one 
thing which they intend to do that is wrong, and 
I have come to ask you about it.” 


A RTJBEIOAL RECTOR. 


49 


Mr. Chancel looked at his parishioner with a 
mildly expectant air, strikingly in contrast with 
David Limber’s energetic speech. 

“ It is the raffling that I mean ; setting up a 
hundred-dollar doll and other nonsensical things, 
I dare say, to be raffled for. It appears to me 
that this is against good morals, and I believe 
that it is against the law. The fair is to be held 
in my house, and 1 do not want to violate either 
morality or law, and I would like to know what 
you think about it and whether you will use your 
authority to prevent it.” 

“I presume, Mr. Limber,” said the rector, 
with great deliberation, “ that you address this 
question to me, not in my individual capacity, but 
as the incumbent of this parish.” 

“ Upon my word,” said our honest manufact- 
urer, feeling the ground beginning to slip away 
from him here, as it had done at his own table, 
“ I want to know whether this thing is right or 
whether it is wrong, and I do not see that it 
makes any diJfference whether your opinion is 
given in your dressing-gown or your surplice.” 

“ The point of my inquiry is this,” said Mr. 
Chancel, pursuing the even tenor of his speech, 
“ right and wrong are relative terms, Mr. Limber, 
and, in the case supposed, the answer might de- 


50 


MRS. limber’s raffle. 


pend upon varying considerations, presenting in 
one aspect an abstract proposition, and in the 
other a question of expediency. Even lotteries, 
under certain conditions, have been comprehend- 
ed within the category of pious uses. A tempo- 
rary structure is said to have been erected at the 
west door of St. Paul’s on one occasion for the 
drawing of prizes in money, plate, tapestry, and 
armor ; and I believe it is customary, as an ad- 
junct of a strictly eleemosynary character, to 
make a moderate use of the lot or chance in con- 
nection with fairs of this description. Person- 
ally, as a speculation in the higher region of 
morals, I might discuss the subject with you 
casuistically ; but, should it be, and I am unable 
to affirm the contrary without further informa- 
tion, that the bishop of this diocese, upon due 
deliberation, or even by implication, as by his 
presence or expressed approbation, had sanc- 
tioned the holding of a fair at which such an ac- 
cessory was introduced, it would ill become me 
to hazard an official decision that this was erro- 
neous. I will never commit an act of contumacy 
against my bishop, Mr. Limber, never; and I 
should hesitate to pronounce a private judgment 
where the subject is one which might properly 
be referred to my superior for adjudication.” 


A EUBEICAL EECTOE. 


51 


“ But, if it is against the law of the land,” 
urged Mr. Limber, “ are you not bound to take 
note of that, and instruct your parishioners ? ” 

“ Not in the present absolute, I will not say 
unhappy, divorce of Church and state,” re) lied 
the rector, promptly. “ You will bear me wit- 
ness that I have never preached politics or med- 
dled with the civil powers. No, sir, I am clear 
of that imputation, however obnoxious to it other 
pulpits may be.” 

“ Other pulpits ” meant Dr. Flatfoot, who had 
just preached and published a sermon telling 
some plain truths about the habits of the manu- 
facturing population of Spindle, giving the sta- 
tistics of drunkenness and crime, and demanding 
an enforcement of the Sunday and excise laws. 
But Mr. Limber was too much occupied with the 
subject in hand to notice this side-thrust. 

“ Then I am to understand,” said he, rising 
and turning toward the door, “ that it comes to 
this, Mr. Chancel — you decline to interfere.” 

“ Just so-; to interfere — the precise word, my 
dear sir. Etymologically, it is derived from the 
Latin inter-ferio-ferire^ “ to strike between ” — a 
most apt derivative and descriptive word, giving 
you, as a practical man, my exact position. It is 
in many instances the duty of a priest to strike 


62 


MES. LIMBEe’s EAFFLE. 


against the foes of his church, but never to strike 
between friends or to foment occasions of dis- 
cord. A bishop is to be no striker, and cer- 
tainly a poor rector should not be one.” 

Mr. Limber shook hands and said good-bj as 
cheerfully as he could, but with a feeling that 
somehow he was being baffled at every point, 
and as if it were his own fault. There was an 
awkward sense of discomfiture in his leave- 
taking, but Mr. Chancel’s was as genial as at his 
first g-reeting. 

“ Good-by, my dear sir — my best regards to 
Mrs. Limber. You will be sure to come again; 
my next sermon will interest you as a manufact- 
urer. It will be on the symbolism of vestments, 
and, by-the-way, I may mention to you in confi- 
dence that, in that discourse, while I establish 
the identity of the surplice with the isiaca of 
the priests of Isis, I utterly confute the absurd 
Puritanical prejudice against it on that account. 
Come again, Mr. Limber. I rely upon you as a 
rubricist.” 

If the front-gate closed with something of a 
slam it in nowise disturbed the serenity of the 
good rector, who went back to his excavations 
with a complacent smile, after lighting a pipe, 
which looked as if it had been bought at the first 
fair after the discovery of tobacco. 


CHAPTER V. 


MK. calendar’s code. 

Mr. Limber walked from the rectory at a 
rapid pace, in the direction of his factory, with 
the full intention of reaching that haven of rest 
at the earliest possible moment. But, as he 
turned the corner of the street w’hich led from 
the Broadw^ay of Spindle to the manufacturing 
district, he suddenly stopped. Mr. Limber was 
an inventor, and, like other inventors, he had his 
sudden inspirations. He hesitated for a moment, 
as if to assure himself that he was right in obey- 
ing the new impulse which controlled his move- 
ments, and then deliberately turned about and 
retraced his steps toward the main street, saying 
as he did so, “ Why didn’t I think of John Cal- 
endar before ? ” 

John Calendar was the best of the half-score 
of lawyers who went up to the circuits and gen- 
eral terms of the judicial department in wliich 
Spindle was situated. Being a man of method 


54 MK8. limbee’s eaefle. 

and moderation, with a horror of debt, and a 
habit of paying his bills promptly, he had ac- 
quired a reputation for wealth, and, being a man 
who was more given to thinking than to talking, 
he had also acquired a reputation for wisdom. 
In reality he was neither as rich nor as wise as 
people supposed, but, as he made no pretensions 
to either quality, it was not his fault if he was 
doubly overrated. On the other hand, he was 
even a better lawyer than his clients imagined, 
and, besides his knowledge of the law, he was 
versed in many things, among others in human 
nature and the ways of the world. 

Mr. Calendar was a stanch Presbyterian, and 
yet it was he who had counseled David Limber, 
when he sought his advice, to quit the First 
Presbyterian Church, and go with his wife to St. 
Parvus. “ Do not hesitate,” he had said to his 
client and old friend, as he saw him wavering 
under a conflict of views, “ go with your wife, by 
all means; you will change neither your religion 
nor your creed; the family is older than the 
church. You are only a private and not an 
officer in the Presbyterian ranks, and are not 
responsible for the system, nor is it with you a 
matter of sentiment as it is with your wife ; to 
her the church-life to which she is accustomed is 


MR. calendar’s code. 55 

8 part of her being, and she never could be at 
ease elsewhere, while you can accommodate your- 
self easily to a change. For personal piety the 
church of Jeremy Taylor and Wilberforce ought 
to be as good as the church of Calvin or John 
Knox. Its form of government would be intol- 
erable to me, but it will not disturb you. Its 
order of worship is superior to ours — ” 

“ I didn’t suppose you would admit that,” 
said Mr. Limber, somewhat startled, 

“ Certainly I do, not to the praise of Epis- 
copacy, but to the blame of Presbyterianism. 
The Anglican Church, or its American offshoot, 
has no more exclusive right to the Te Deum, or 
the prayers of the early fathers, which they have 
taken from the Latin Church, than they have to 
the Lord’s prayer or the Apostles’ creed, but as a 
squatter’s title is sometimes made good by pre- 
scription, our Presbyterian churches, following a 
bad extreme of Puritanism, leave them in posses- 
sion of the liturgy. It will be a great comfort to 
you, at least it would be to me, to be in a church 
where you will have some idea beforehand what 
is going to happen at a christening, a wedding, 
or a funeral. I would be an Episcopalian myself 
if it were not for Episcopacy.” 

“ The service is very monotonous,” said Da\dd 


56 IVIES, limbee’s eaffle. 

Limber, feeling bound to make some show of 
resistance. 

“Yes,” said Mr. Calendar, “it certainly is, 
but it is the monotone of tbe deepest needs and 
highest aspirations of our fallen, redeemed hu- 
manity, and, to the English-speaking race, the 
book of Common Prayer must ever be, next to 
the Psalms of David, the most perfect medium of 
intercourse between earth and heaven which the 
spirit of devotion ever cast in the mould of hu 
man speech.” 

Aided by such counsel as this, Mr. Limber, to 
whose honest nature substance was more than 
form, was easily won over to the Prayer-Book, 
submitting for its sake, as he used sometimes to 
say, to a great deal of sing-song in the sermons. 
This happy result was mainly due to Mr. Calen- 
dar’s good offices, but Mrs. Limber never knew 
for how much of her domestic peace and happi- 
ness she was indebted to the sharp-eyed lawyer, 
whom she was apt to regard as a bigot in his 
religion, an ascetic in his life, and a bore in his 
conversation. 

Mr. Limber was fortunate enough to find the 
lawyer in his office, a little building adjoining 
the old-fashioned house which he had made thor- 
oughly comfortable according to his own ideas. 


MR. CALENDAR S CODE. 


57 


after the somewhat luxurious though not extrav- 
agant habits of his profession. He greeted his 
client very cordially. 

“ I thought I should have a visit from you 
this week. We shall begin to take testimony in 
the patent case next month, and I want the list 
of your witnesses.” 

“ It was not that which brought me here to- 
day,” said Mr. Limber, seating himself by the 
table and going at once to his point. “ I want 
to ask you some questions about another matter. 
Perhaps I am foolish about it, but you must set- 
tle it for me. You have heard of Mrs. Limber’s 
church fair that is to be.” 

“ Yes, to be sure. Our Lillie is w^orking for 
it like a little beaver.” 

“ Well, Calendar, they are bent on having a 
raffle at this fair which I suppose is a common 
thing, but I have got it into my head that it 
ought not to be, and I want to ask you first of all 
this simple question ; Is raffling right or wrong ? ” 

“ Unquestionably, wrong.” 

“ Do you mean morally wrong or wrong be- 
cause it is against the law ? ” 

“ Both. It is wrong by itself and in itself, and 
wrong, besides, because the law of the land pro- 
hibits it.” 


68 


MRS. limber’s raffle. 


“Very good, but now I want you to tell me 
why it is wrong and how it is wrong. I want 
you to explain this thing and lay down the law 
to me, both as to the moral part and the legal 
part, just as if I were a jury and you were a 
judge or a chief-justice.” 

And Mr. Limber put on a concentrated air of 
attention, befitting twelve single jurors rolled into 
one, waiting for the judge’s charge at the close 
of a long trial. 

“The moral part, as you call it,” said the 
newly-invested chief-justice, “ is very simple. It 
rests on two plain facts which no one can dispute. 
Fact number one, that there is in our human nature, 
no matter how it got there, an inherent, univer- 
sal disposition to make chance a means of gain ; 
fact number two, that this natural passion serves 
no good end, and, on the contrary, has always 
and everywhere, the world over, proved a fruitful 
and perpetual source of idleness, misery, and 
crime, so much so that the most advanced com- 
munities absolutely prohibit its exercise, either on 
a large scale in government lotteries, or on a small 
scale in bar-room raffles or church-fair raffles. In 
other words, society says to every man, woman, 
and child, that to pay money or give any valuable 
thing for the chance of gaining a larger sum or 


ME. CALENDAe’s code. 


59 


something of greater value, is so pernicious a 
thing in itself and in its effects that it shall not 
be tolerated. This is the testimony of society to 
the moral evil, and here comes in what j’ou call 
the legal part ; because the evil is so universal 
and far reaching, our own State has undertaken to 
stamp it out by the most solemn prohibitions.” 

“ I was certain it was against the law,” said 
David Limber, eagerly. 

“ Against the law ! My dear sir, the prohi- 
bition is made a part of the constitution of New 
York. This is a very different thing, you see, 
from a law, which one Legislature may make and 
the next Legislature repeal.” 

“ That disposes of my wdfe’s Jack Filch argu- 
ment,” said Mr. Limber to himself. 

“ Yes,” continued Mr. Calendar, “ this prohi- 
bition is a part of our social compact ; of the fun- 
damental law, as we lawyers call it. Let me 
read it to you.” 

“ That is right,” said Mr. Limber. “ I like to 
have chapter and verse.” 

“ Very well, here it is, article first, section 
tenth of tlie constitution, the last clause : ‘ Nor 
shall any lottery hereafter he authorized or any 
sale of lottery tickets allowed within this State.'* ” 

“ But does that include raffles ? ” 


60 


MES. LIMBEe’s EAFFLE. 


“Yes, it does; the word ‘raffle’ is only an- 
other name for ‘ lottery,’ the difference being that^ 
in a lottery, money is paid for the chance of win- 
ning money, and in a raffle, money is paid for the 
chance of winning some article of more or less 
value. The word ‘ lottery ’ in the constitution 
covered both descriptions, and when the Legisla- 
ture came to make laws, to enforce the prohibition 
of the constitution, it used both words, ‘ lottery 
and ‘ raffle.’ I will read the law to you present- 
ly, but, just now, let us keep in mind that the 
provisions of the constitution and the law rest* 
on the conceded moral mischief of the thing. 
What is condemned is not made wrong by the 
law, but the law condemns it because it is wrong. 
So you see that a lottery or a raffle is an immoral 
and illegal thing, not to be permitted on any 
pretense whatever, whether to put money into 
the exchequer of a State, the purse of a gambler^ 
or the treasury of a church. Have 1 made this 
clear to you ? ” 

“ Perfectly,” said David Limber, “ but I must 
ask one or two more questions : has it ever been 
decided by the courts that a raffle is wrong and 
illegal if it is in aid of a good object ? That is 
ray wife’s strong point. She says that a raffle 
like hers, for a purely good object, cannot possi- 


ME. OALENDAb’s code. 


61 


blj be against good morals or against the law. 
Has such a Case ever come up ? ” 

“ Certainly it has, and before our highest 
court. I will tell you how it came about : There 
was hardly ever a more commendable object in 
itself than the American Art Union. It was an 
association devoted to the promotion of the fine 
arts and the encouragement of American artists. 
Any one could subscribe, and, by paying five dol- 
lars, yearly, become a member. The money was 
used to maintain a free gallery for the exhibition 
of works of American artists, to issue to each 
member a fine engraving every year, and a copy 
of the Art Journal^ published monthly by the 
association, and to the purchase of original paint- 
ings by American artists. Thus the subscriber 
received for his five dollars, in the use of the gal- 
lery, in the engraving and the journal, and in the 
satisfaction he took in the promotion of American 
art, a full equivalent for his money, and he was 
interested besides, as a part owner, in all the 
works of art purchased during the year by the 
association. At the close of the year, all the 
pictures were distributed by lot among the mem- 
bers, and each one had a chance of getting a 
picture wortli perhaps fifty, perhaps five hundred 
dollars, a landscape by Durand, a classic head by 
5 


62 


MBS. limber’s raffle. 


Gray, or a mountain-dell by Kensett. No won- 
der the Art Union was popular ; its fine gallery 
on Broadway was a centre of attraction and a 
new incentive to the pencil of every artist. In 
1851 no less than thirteen thousand subscribers 
were enrolled, yielding the handsome sum of six- 
ty-five thousand dollars for the cultivation of 
American art. All of a sudden the statute pro- 
hibiting raffling was set in motion against this 
praiseworthy association and its philanthropic 
managers, including one very learned judge, sev- 
eral very learned lawyers, and a number of very 
eminent citizens, all of whom were arraigned as 
violators of the law.” 

“ What became of the case ? ” asked Mr. 
Limber, as much interested as if he had been the 
holder of an Art Union certificate of membership. 

“ It went to the Court of Appeals. The Art 
Union made a brave fight. The ablest counsel 
pleaded for it ; the good it was doing and the 
pure motives of its promoters were fully conceded 
by the court, but there stood the law and the 
constitution, and the fact that the scheme was 
wrought out by an appeal to the universal passion 
of playing at games of chance brought it under 
the ban. As you like to have chapter and verse, 
I will take the book which contains the decision, 


!VrR. calendar’s code. 


63 


and read you the very words, so that you may be 
sure I am not speaking after my own notions, but 
according to the settled law. Here is what the 
court say : ‘ The prohibition was not aimed at 
the object for which lotteries had been author- 
ized, but at the particular mode of accomplishing 
the object. It was founded on the moral princi- 
ple that evil should not be done, that good might 
follow, and upon the more cogent, practical rea- 
son that the evil consequent on this pernicious 
kind of gambling greatly overbalanced in the 
aggregate any good likely to result from it.’ ” 

“ But, suppose,” said Mr. Limber, “ the money 
contributed to the ralBe goes to the good object 
directly, as to the church in this fair, the chance 
of winning the prize being merely the instrument 
or vehicle of an act of benevolence, does that 
make no dijQference ? ” 

“ No, not the least, so long as the chance is 
the inducement held out to attract the contribu- 
tion. Whoever holds it out sets in motion the 
evil principle which is the root of gambling and 
its legion train of vices. To be sure, with many 
persons it may be a matter of indifference whether 
they win or lose, and charity may be the ruling 
motive. But, in reasoning about the matter, we 
must take human nature as it is, and men and 


64 


MES. LIMBEe’s EAFFLE. 


women as they are, and the chance of winning 
appeals to a universal passion. Suppose two 
men sit down to play ‘ seven-up,’ each with fifty 
dollars in his pocket, and they agree to stake all 
their money on the game, but whoever wins shall 
give it all to an orphan asylum. Would these 
two be any the less gamblers because the result 
of their game was to benefit the orphan ? If 
charity was their motive, they could each give 
fifty dollars without the play ; and if amusement 
was their object, they could play without the 
stake. The real zest of the game is in the haz- 
ard.” 

“ Do you mean to say, then, that all games of 
chance are wrong ? ” 

“ By no means. Chance is a proper element 
of calculation and determination, and using it for 
amusement is no more wrong than using it in 
drawing a jury, classifying directors, or distribut- 
ing seats in the House of Representatives ; but 
to stake money on a chance, whether a cent or 
a fortune, whether for greed or benevolence, is 
wrong, because it is the exercise of a natural 
passion whose tendency is wholly evil, and which, 
therefore, must be evil in itself.” 

“ But if it is a natural passion is it possible to 
prevent its exercise ? ” 


MB. CALENDAb’s code. 


65 


“ No,” said Mr. Calendar, “ it is not possible. 
The native love of gaming is like the sea, with 
its mighty under-currents and its resistless tidal 
forces. All that human law-makers can do is to 
build breakwaters which may restrain it wdthiu 
some visible bounds, but which do not stay the 
incessant roll of the waves or hinder the wrecks 
which strew the shores. But surely all good men 
and women should join hands to drive the pest 
of pious gambling from the church ; there, if 
nowhere else, things evil in themselves ought to 
be wholly prohibited.” 

‘‘I think I see your distinction,” said Mr, 
Limber. “ It is the stake that makes the moral 
mischief. According to this, I suppose, card- 
playing for amusement is innocent, and yet I 
have never seen a card in your house. This is 
rather aside from our discussion, but I wish you 
w^ould tell me why you exclude cards if you don’t 
think it wrong to play cards.” 

Mr. Calendar smiled as he replied : “ My dear 
friend, you and I might certainly sit down of an 
evening and take a hand at whist with Mr. Chan- 
cel or Dr. Flatfoot, just as Archdeacon Paley 
was fond of doing with his clerical or lay com- 
panions, without breaking any law, human or 
divine, and we ought to brook no man’s meddling 


66 


MRS. limber’s raffle. 


■with our right to do so. I know that St. Chrys- 
ostom denounced play as an invention of the 
devil, but I believe, with Jeremy Taylor, that so 
long as the play is not for money, cards are as 
innocent as push-pin, and, if necessary to assert 
right to such an opinion, I would play cards 
on my front-porch. We should never permit 
priest or presbyter to recast the moral law or 
override the gospel precepts with human prohibi- 
tions. In things not evil in themselves and ser- 
viceable for health, or amusement, or social relax- 
ation, the Bible rule, as I read it, is temperance 
and not abstinence. And yet, if I am satisfied 
by experience and observation that cards are such 
favorite instruments of vice, all the world over, 
so easily available for the worst uses and so asso- 
ciated with every scene of vile companionship, 
that I prefer not to admit them to my house, and 
to choose other forms of amusement for myself 
and my children, I have certainly the right to do 
it, though I have no right to impose my pref- 
erence on others. In short, I believe in the 
law of temperance and the liberty of abstinence. 
But see, and there is this plain difference between 
card-playing and raffling, and this may bring us 
back to our subject, that one may play at cards, 
so long as he does it for amusement only and in 


ivm. calendar’s code. 67 

play-time, without infringing any law of morals ; 
but raffling is wrong in itself, because it stirs up 
the evil element within us, the love of gaining by 
chance. It is not a question of the object of the 
action, but of the character of the action, and, if 
that is bad, the action must be bad.” 

“ And yet, while the moral evil must of course 
have always been the same, how is it that the 
legal prohibitions are so recent ? Haven’t I heard 
that Union College, and other literary institu- 
tions in this State, were founded or aided by 
means of lotteries, and the newspapers every day 
advertise drawings in other States ? ” 

“ Oh, yes ! The American Revolution, a more 
beneficent enterprise even than Union College, 
was promoted by a lottery, devised most ingen- 
iously by the same immortal Congress of 1776, 
which put forth the Declaration of Independence, 
and, to-day, distressed commonwealths at home 
and abroad resort to the same shifts. In New 
York we have grown rich enough and moral 
enough to shame the venerated signers of ’76 or 
our own legislators of sixty years ago, who jum- 
bled together Union College, Hamilton College, 
the College of Physicians and Surgeons, the As- 
bury African Church, and the Historical Societ}’, 
in one grand conglomerated scheme for a lottery 


68 


IklES. limber’s raffle. 

‘ for the promotion of literature, and for other pur- 
poses 1 ’ And yet, even now, the spirit of ’76 is 
not extinct, and, in practice, our people are quite 
ready to ignore the constitution, as well as the 
moral law, and public opinion winks at the 
offenders.” 

“ What seems strangest to me,” said David 
Limber, “ is that I cannot get my wife, who is, 
as I verily believe, the best woman alive, to ad- 
mit the bare idea that her raffle may be wrong.” 

“ My dear Limber, that is simply because 
raffling belongs to a class of misdeeds, the evil 
of which must be perceived by induction, and 
not by intuition. The pure moral instinct, whicli 
would be shocked at the staking a dollar on the 
green cloth of the faro-table, takes no wound 
when the same dollar goes into the lily-white 
hand of a Sunday-school teacher, to swell her list 
of raffle-chances. In reality, the same bad pas- 
sion is appealed to in either case, for different 
ends, but, to make this apparent, requires a pro- 
cess of reasoning, and no lady patroness of a 
Charity Fair will endure to have her way blocked 
by a syllogism. Pure women, with their wits 
about them, are wonderful detectives of vice, how- 
ever masked, but, under the sway of feeling, 
they have been arrant law-breakers from Mothei 
Eve down.” 


ME. CALENDAe’s code. 


69 


There was a pause, which Mr. Calendar occu- 
pied in sharpening a lead-pencil to a very fine 
point, while his client’s brows were contracted 
under the seeming pressure of some inventive 
idea. At* last his face lighted up. 

“You said you would read me the law. I 
suppose there is some penalty or punishment for 
breaking it.” 

“ I meant to have given you chapter and verse 
of the Jaw, just as I did of the constitution. Here 
it is on page 665 of the first volume of the Re- 
vised Statutes.” 

“ Let me hear it,” said Mr. Limber, as eagerly 
intent as if the promised extract were the most 
entertaining bit of prose ever penned, instead 
of the two dry sections of the statute which are 
the hinges whereon our story turns. 

Mr. Calendar, thus urged, read as follows : 

“ ‘ Section 22. No person shall set up or propose any 
money, goods, chattels or things in action, to he raffled 
for, or to be distributed by lot or chance, to any per- 
son who shall have paid, or contracted to pay, any 
valuable consideration for the chance of obtaining such 
money, goods, or things in action. Any person offend- 
ing against this provision, shall forfeit three times the 
sum of money, or value of the articles so set up, to- 
gether with the sum of ten dollars, to be recovered bj 


70 


V 


MRS. miBER’s RAFFLE. 


and in the name of the overseers of the poor of the 
town where the offense is committed. 

“ ‘ Section 23. No person shall rafiSe for any sum of 
money, goods, or things in action, or become inter- 
ested in the distribution of any money, goods or things 
in action, by lot or chance. Whoever offends against 
this provision shall forfeit ten dollars, to be recovered 
as directed in the preceding section.’ ” 

“ Thank you,” said Mr. Limber, now wholly 
at ease, and with an air of conscious mastery. 
“ If I understand it right, the threefold value of 
the thing set up, and the ten-dollar penalty 
against everybody who takes a chance, are col- 
lected by the overseers of the poor.” 

“ So says the statute.” 

“ And who sets the overseers in motion ? ” 

“ Any one who will turn informer and make 
a complaint ; but I am quite sure no one in Spin- 
dle will think of setting the dogs of the law on 
these benevolent ladies, even if they are wrong- 
doers.” 

“ Can the overseers refuse to act if they are 
called on to enforce the law ? ” 

“ Strictly speaking, I suppose not. The law 
presumes that every public officer is as prompt 
to do his duty as he is to draw his pay.” 

“ And the overseers can sue every man and 
woman and child who has taken a chance ? ” 


ME. calendar’s code. 71 

“ Yes, for ten dollars each.” 

“ And they can *sue the person putting up the 
raffle for three times the value of the thing to be 
raffled for, and ten dollars besides ? ” 

“ Such is the law.” 

“ Now, Calendar,” said Mr. Limber, rising, 
“ one thing more. I want you to make me a bill 
for all this advice, and date it to-day and receipt 
it, for I mean to pay it before I go, and I am go- 
ing now.” 

Mr. Limber was evidently in earnest, and the 
lawyer, seeing this, checked the refusal which 
was rising to his lips, and laughingly said : 

“ For the legal part of my advice you may 
pay, but not for the moral part. When my ad- 
vice is given from the Revised Statutes or from 
my law-books, or from my own experience or 
brains, my clients ought to pay, but I can hardly 
make the Bible a basis for a fee.” 

“ Perhaps you are not quite as sure of your 
position on the Bible as you are on the Revised 
Statutes, else why charge for your law and not 
for your morals ? ” 

“ Perhaps, friend Limber, it is because I pre- 
fer to give my clients gratuitously what I think 
they need the most ! ” 

“ Then you don’t always believe in charity 


72 


MRS. limber’s raffle. 


beginning at home ? ” said the manufacturer, un- 
strapping his pocket-book, 

“ Take out an X,” said Mr. Calendar, while 
he wrote and dated a receipt, according to Mr. 
Limber’s request. That gentleman examined it 
carefully, placed it in his pocket-book, and, with 
a warm hand-shake, took his leave. 

Mr. Calendar resumed his seat at his desk. His 
pencil, although he had not written a word with 
it since its last sharpening, seemed to require re- 
newed attention. He devoted himself for some 
time to the process of giving it the finest im- 
aginable point, with an abstracted energy, which 
might have served for the cross-examination of 
the most unwilling witness. All the while he 
was thinking rapidly. At last he pocketed the 
pencil, seized a sheet of note-paper, and, taking 
up the pen which had just traced Mr. Limber’s 
receipt, he wrote as follows ; 

Spindle, December 10, 18 — . 
Overseers of the Poor of the Town of Spindle. 

Gentlemen: I believe that you rely upon me to at- 
tend to any law business which you may have. I am 
60 situated at present that I may not be able to act 
for you, and should you require any professional ser- 
vices, allow me to recommend, as a competent and 
faithful attorney, Mr. Eichard Folio, of this village. 
He studied law with me, and was admitted at the last 


MR. calendar’s code. 


73 


General Term. He is a prompt and efficient practi- 
titioner. Yours trulj, 

John Calendar. 

Mr. Calendar, having sealed this note, directed 
it to “ Hugh Boulder, Esq., overseer of the poor,” 
and then opened his window and beckoned to 
his man-of-all-work who was engaged in repair- 
ing a piece of fence hard by. 

“ Jacob,” said he, “ did you see Mr. Limber 
as he left my office ? ” 

“ Yes, sir,” said the man, touching his hat ; “ he 
stopped and asked me whether Mr. Boulder had 
got into his new office yet, over the bank, and I 
told him he had. I saw him moving in yesterday.” 

“Very well,” said Mr. Calender ; “ I want you 
to take this note to Mr. Boulder’s office and if it 
should reach there as soon as Mr. Limber, or be- 
fore, so much the better. Give it to his clerk and 
let him deliver it.” 

“ All right, sir,” said Jacob, who was used to 
Mr. Calendar’s explicit orders, which he prided 
himself on executing to the letter, and he hurried 
off on his errand. 

The lawyer crossed the snow-covered bit of 
lawn between his office and his house. Midway 
he was met by a fair-haired, blue-eyed girl of sev- 
enteen. 


74 


MES. LIMBER S RAFFLE. 


“Dear papa, I was coming to find you. I 
want you to take a little sleigh-ride with me ; the 
pony is at the gate.” 

“ Bring me some extra wraps and I will venture 
with you, and, stop a minute, Lillie ” — as the girl 
turned to fly toward the house — “ here is some- 
thing to spend at Mrs. Limber’s fair<” 

He handed her the ten-dollar note for which 
he had just receipted to Mr. Limber. 

“ Oh, thank you, papa, ever so much” — this 
with a kiss between every two words — “ I can 
buy lots of things for Christmas.” 

“ But, Lillie, not a cent for the raffle.” 

“ No, papa, I should not have thought of tak 
ing a chance in it, even if you had not spoken 
about it.” 

“ And why not, Lillie ? do you think you could 
make out that it is wrong.” 

“ Really, papa, I had not thought anything 
about the right or wrong of it. I knew very well 
that you disapproved of it, and that was enough 
for me.” 

And with another kiss she left his side and 
ran toward the house. 

Her father followed her with a look of satis- 
6ed affection. “ After all,” he thought, “ love is 
the fulfillment of the law.” 


CHAPTER VI. 


THE FAIE. 

The fair was a success. This was the popu- 
lar verdict at an early hour in the day. A light 
snow-fall, on a well-packed surface, had made the 
sleighing excellent, and it was all the more enjoj^- 
able because of its novelty. The mercury stood 
just below the freezing-point, and j’et the sun was 
shining as brightly as if its sole purpose was to 
contribute all its attractive forces in aid of Mrs. 
Limber and St. Parvus. 

Spindle took kindly to a holiday in advance 
of Christmas, and the well-filled tables in the 
large, square parlors of the Limber mansion, with 
their pretty-faced and prettily-attired attendants, 
did not lack for customers. Everything went on 
well and everybody was pleased. There were 
no dead-letters in the post-office ; the Sibyls 
gave out the most flattering oracles and re- 
sponses at the rate of twentj^-five cents each ; 
the gypsies foretold the most auspicious des- 


76 


MRS. limber’s raffle. 


tinies ; the fair Rebeccas dispensed unceasing 
draughts of lemonade from wells in which there 
was only too much water ; Punch and Judy 
out-Punched and out-Judied themselves in ten- 
derness and tragedy ; the conjurer exhibited a 
cabbage-head in any gentleman’s hat ; the picture- 
gallery, wisely ignoring high art, brought the 
broadest grins to the faces of the visitors ; the 
flower-girls got the largest prices for the small- 
est bouquets; the refreshment-tent, inclosed in 
a temporary wooden structure, adjoining the 
dining-room, and heated with portable stoves, 
grew warmer as the day advanced, but was al- 
ways chilly enough to provoke unlimited de- 
mands for hot viands and repeated cups of cof- 
fee ; while the decorations of evergreens and 
flowers and flags, and emblazoned texts and in- 
scriptions inciting to a reckless benevolence, con- 
spired to produce what the worthy rector was 
pleased to call a happy and symbolical blending 
of nature, patriotism, and piety. 

Conspicuous on a marble pier-table, in front 
of a polished mirror, stood Centuria, in all her 
wondrous finery, and from her satin-slippered feet 
depended the list of subscribers, duly numbered 
from 1 to 100. The chances, at a dollar apiece, 
were taken quite freely, but to fill the roll a little 


THE FAIR. 


77 


active canvassing was required on the part of the 
young ladies in charge of the raffle, which was 
under the general superintendence of Miss Bessie 
Limber. Every new-comer, especially if he be- 
longed to the not very numerous class of eligi- 
ble young gentlemen who somewhat sparingly 
adorned society in Spindle, was attacked wdth an 
avidity which would have been creditable to a 
veteran life-insurance agent. Dialogues such as 
this were frequent: 

“ Now, Mr. Diagonal, I declare you must take 
a chance in the raffle.” 

“ Thanks, Miss Tarleton, I believe not.” 

“ Oh, but you must ; we shall never fill it up 
if you don’t.” 

“ Wait till I come this way again. ” 

“ How provoking you are ! that is just an ex- 
cuse to get away. I shall lose you if you go.” 

“ I shall lose my money if I stay.” 

“ But you will be sure to get this lovely doll, 
and you know it will be just the thing for your 
little niece — what a darling she is ! ” 

“ Oh, I never have any luck.” 

“ You never had me to pick you out a lucky 
number. Now, Mr. Diagonal, I will never, never 
speak to you again as long as you live and breathe, 
if you don’t ; ” and, under the influence of this 
6 


78 


MRS. limber’s raffle, 


fearful threat, down would go Diagonal’s name 
and his dollar, the helpless victim receiving in re- 
turn a sweet smile and a card containing his num- 
ber. 

The evening brought the gentlemen in full 
force, and the ladies in fresh costumes. Nothing 
so brilliant had been seen in Spindle for many a 
day. Mrs. Limber had worked with a will, and 
had levied her contributions upon all available 
sources of supply. Still, in her heart of hearts, 
she wished the fair well over, and the feeling that 
she would never — no, never — undertake another, 
was beginning gently to steal over her even in 
the hour of her triumph. She had planned a visit 
to New York before the holidays, and it was ar- 
ranged that the whole family should leave for the 
city the day following the fair. The preparations 
for their departure, and the arrangements for put- 
ting the house in order during their absence, had 
given Mrs. Limber an added share of labor, and 
she rejoiced as the evening drew toward its close. 
There was to be an auction at ten o’clock, then 
the raffle, and all was to end as near eleven as 
possible. 

This programme had been agreed to in the 
morning, and an additional motive for rigidly ad- 
hering to it was the presence of the Spindle 


THE FAIE. 


Y9 


brass band, which had volunteered to play at in- 
tervals during the evening, and it was only too 
well known that this tuneful brotherhood had 
brass enough and wind enough to play all night 
on the slightest encouragement. 

Prompted by Mrs. Limber, Sam announced, 
precisel}^ at ten o’clock, that an auction-sale of 
all the unsold goods would forthwith be held, 
immediately after which the drawing of the rafSe 
would commence, the whole number of shares 
having been subscribed and the books closed. 
Upon this, one of those good-humored, good-look- 
ing gentlemen, who always happen to be present 
on such occasions, gifted with a ready flow of 
wit and a magnetic voice, mounted the library- 
steps, and, after the most approved manner of the 
auction-room, invited the freest competition, pre- 
mising that, as he had been waiting all the even- 
ing for just such an opportunity of saying his 
best things, the sale would be, on his part, wholly 
without reserve. 

With such a brilliant auctioneer the sale went 
on swimmingly. He-^nade more than the usual 
complement of stale jokes, he dwelt fondly on 
some articles and knocked down others before 
they were fairly set up, and bid in several lots for 
himself, to inspire confidence in his statements of 


80 


MRS. limber’s raffle. 


value, and rejected ten-cent bids with scorn, and 
finally, under the pressure of circumstances, ac- 
cepted an advance of five cents, and called upon 
sundry old bachelors to invest in infants’ ward- 
robes, and recommended smoking-caps to gentle- 
men who never smoked, and shaving-soaps to gen- 
tlemen who never shaved, and wound up by offer- 
ing, to the highest bidder, Mr. Limber’s house 
and furniture, including all the family portraits, 
with immediate possession ; terms, cash, payable 
to the auctioneer. In the gaslight and under the 
evergreens and in the current of good spirits, all 
this seemed very funny, and the good-humored 
and good-looking auctioneer had to stop now and 
then and take breath and wipe his forehead. At 
last, having cleared the tables, he paused and in- 
quired if there was anything or anybody else he 
could knock down. 

Here some one suggested that everything 
was sold, including most of the purchasers. 

Then some one else proposed that the list of 
subscribers to the raffle be offered for sale, deliv- 
erable after the drawing. 

“ All right,” said Sam Limber, who, as treas- 
urer, was interested in swelling the receipts by 
every possible penny, “ set it up and sell it on 
that condition.” 


THE FAIE. 


81 


Here it goes, then,” said the auctioneer, “ this 
uiiique and valuable list of subscribers, the only 
one in existence, every name warranted to have 
been written bj^ the subscriber in person or by 
his duly-authorized attorney and therefore in- 
valuable to an autograph-collector : what shall I 
have for it ? ” 

“ Five dollars,” promptly responded a voice 
in the corner of the room. 

“ Five dollars is bid, less than one-half its val- 
ue — will you say six — then five, seventy-five — 
five, fifty — five, twenty -five — five, fifteen — five, 
ten — five, five — are you all done ? — agoing, going, 
last call, fair warning — gone, at five dollars, to 
— whom shall I say ? ” 

“ Richard Folio,” was called out from the 
corner. 

“ What does all this mean ? ” said Mrs. Lim- 
ber, who, supposing that the auction was ended, 
had been giving her attention to something else 
for the moment. 

“ It is Dick Folio,” said Mrs. Chancel, w’ho 
was at her elbow ; “ he has had the list of sub- 
scribers to the raffle set up at auction and has 
bid it off for five dollars.” 

“He hasn’t five dollars to his name,” said 
Mrs. Limber. “ He was Mr. Calendar’s office-boy 


82 


MRS. LBIBER 8 RAFFLE. 


or clerk, and I don’t believe he has made a cent 
since he set up for himself.” 

“Perhaps it is his way of advertising. He 
gets his name before the very best people in 
Spindle, in connection with the respectable sura 
of five dollars, attracts attention, makes a sensa- 
tion, and gets himself discussed.” 

“ I should hardly think any one would stop to 
discuss Dick Folio.” 

“ But, my dear, we are discussing him.” 

“ Well,” said Mrs. Limber, “ he will never 
pay the five dollars.” 

“ But he is paying it now.” 

And, sure enough, Mr. Folio was, at this very 
moment, handing to Sam, in full view of the two 
ladies, a veritable five-dollar bill of the unim- 
peachable issue of the First National Bank of 
Spindle. 

“ Did you ever I ” exclaimed Mrs. Limber. 
She could not tell why, but she felt a shiver of 
uneasiness, as she saw the transaction closed, to 
the evident satisfaction of the purchaser. 

There was no time for further remark on this 
episode, as the drawing of the raffle was about to 
begin. 

To insure absolute fairness in this important 
proceeding, two highly - respectable gentlemen 


THE FAIR. 


83 


carefully examined the counters, on which were 
inscribed the numbers, from 1 to 100, and then 
deposited them in the bottom of a tall, china 
vase, after duly inspecting it to ascertain that it 
was entirely empty. The counters were then 
well shaken up by the same impartial hands. 
A very young lady, in white muslin, with bare 
arms, was then blindfolded, and, after having 
been turned round several times, to her utter 
confusion, was led to the vase, into which she 
was directed to plunge her arm five successive 
times, and each time to bring up from its depths 
a single counter, the fifth to be the winning num- 
l)er. This fivefold trial of fortune was in order 
to prolong the excitement of the drawing, and 
to give the additional zest of showing how tan- 
talizing, as well as capricious, the blind and fickle 
goddess may be. 

The little bare arm went deftly down into the 
vase, and brought up the first counter. The 
brace of respectable gentlemen examined it, and 
one of them called out the number, and then the 
good-humored and good-looking auctioneer with 
the magnetic voice read from the list the name 
of the owner. This happened to be one of the 
belles of Spindle, who thereupon received a round 
of condoling applause. The second name was 


84 : 


MKS. limber’s raffle. 


that of an elderly maiden lady, who gave a little 
scream when her name was called, which set 
everybody laughing, to her great displeasure, as 
the one thing she never could put up with, under 
any circumstances, was to be laughed at. There 
was no time for explanation or apology, as the 
next name was waited for with an impatience 
which increased as the drawing progressed. The 
third name was that of a young gentleman who 
declared that his chance was guaranteed by the 
young lady who took his money, so that he didn’t 
care whether he won or lost. The fourth was 
none other than the good-humored and good- 
looking auctioneer himself. This made a hub- 
bub of laughter and applause, during which he 
pretended to faint, and was brought to by the 
aid of the parlor-bellows. 

This performance was very exciting, and even 
Mr. Limber, who was watching it from a remote 
corner, caught something of the infection and felt 
a genuine thrill of expectancy as the little bare 
arm went down for the fifth time, and, in the pro- 
found silence, drew from the vase the lucky num- 
ber. The two respectable gentlemen examined 
it, and then one of them read it aloud, “ Sixty- 
three^'^ The good-humored and good-looking 
auctioneer glanced at the list and looked up with 


4 


THE FAIR. 


85 


a puzzled air. The pause heightened the sus- 
pense. He seemed for the first time a trifle dis- 
concerted, but the writing was plain and so was 
his duty, and the magnetic voice read “ Number 
^ixty-three — Bridget Looney ! ” 

There was dead silence, then a titter and a 
sudden disappearance of a little group of house- 
maids, who had slyly gathered at the door leading 
from the butler’s pantry into the dining-room — 
and then a general murmer, as if something had 
gone wrong and a universal grievance had been 
distributed among the guests. The idea that this 
name, so wholly unknown to fame and to the 
select circles of Spindle, was the alias of some 
lucky subscriber, who had sailed into success 
under false colors, was freely suggested, while the 
imputation that Mrs. Limber would permit any 
one but her guests to compete in the raflBe was 
indignantly rejected. And yet it was a mystery 
which no one volunteered to solve. Evidently 
the good-looking auctioneer, with all his humor, 
had no joke in reserve for such an emergency as 
this, and he looked a little foolish. Mrs. Lim- 
ber’s quick eye had turned at once on Bessie, 
whose face wore the deep crimson of detected 
guilt. Sam caught a glimpse of the truth and, 
with ra^’e presence of mind, signaled the band, 


86 


ME8. limber’s raffle. 


which immediately struck up “ Homo, Sweet 
Home,” a loud hint for leave-taking. 

“ For once,” thought Sam, “ a brass band is a 
blessing.” 

Mrs. Limber, whose forebodings were only 
too clearly defined, drew Bessie into the bay- 
window of the library. 

“ What is the meaning of this ? How in the 
world did that odious Bridget’s name get on the 
list ? We are all disgraced ! ” 

“ Dear mamma, it is my fault, but I really 
could not help it. I will tell you how it was. 
Bridget came to me the night she left us. I did 
not know until then that she was to be married, 
and she reminded me that I had promised her, 
ever so long ago, and I had, that whenever she 
was married I would give her a wedding present. 
‘ Now, Miss Bessie,’ said she, ‘ it is only a little 
trifling thing I want you to do for me ; your pa 
and ma have been good to me, and yourself, and 
it’s no present I’m asking.’ I told her, without 
thinking, that I would do anything I could for 
her, and she kept saying, ‘ Oh, it’s easj'’ enough,’ 
and so I pretty much promised her, just as we do 
sometimes, you know, with the children when 
they tease. ‘ But what is it, Bridget ? ’ I asked 
her over and over. Then, when she had got the 


THE FAIR. 


87 


promise, she said : ‘ It is just nothing at all but 
a chance in 3'our ma’s lottery.’ Of course, then, 
I told her she must not call it a lottery, and I 
tried to put her off, and proposed that I would 
take an extra share in the raffle, and pay for it, 
and if I drew the prize it should be hers ; but, 
‘ Oh, no, miss, that wouldn’t do at all,’ it must 
be her own money that pays, and her own name 
and number, or it wouldn’t be ‘ no good.’ Then 
T said, ‘ Nonsense, Bridget, why waste your mon- 
ey just when you want it ? ’ ‘ Never you fret 

about my money. Miss Bessie,’ said she, ‘ but if 
you will break your word to a poor girl, and you 
a fine lady, it’s easier breaking than keeping.’ 
— Now, mamma, what could I do ? What I did 
was this : ‘ Bridget,’ said I, ‘ you are a silly goose, 
but pick out your number.’ ‘ The number is 
picked already,’ said she ; ‘ it’s Pat’s lucky num- 
ber, and a happy wife it will be making me, and 
it’s number 63, it is.’ I knew there was only 
one chance in a hundred of her winning, so I 
kept it to myself, and said nothing to you or to 
any one else.” 

“ But I did not see her name on the list. I 
looked over it only fifteen minutes before the 
drawing.” 

“ No. I just wrote * taken,’ opposite the num- 


88 


MRS. limber’s raffle. 


ber, and, a few minutes before they put the coun- 
ters in the vase, I wrote the name, ‘ Bridget 
Looney,’ in the list. I never supposed that any 
one would see it or hear of it, and I don’t know 
now what she meant by its being Pat’s lucky 
number and making her a happy wife. She just 
threw the dollar in my lap and kissed my cheek, 
and ran off. Dear mamma, are we all ruined? 
I wish I had never heard of the fair, nor the 
raffle.” 

Hj^sterics were imminent, Mrs. Limber was 
frightened into comparative self-possession, and 
she said as quietly and as assuringly as she could : 

“ Never mind, Bessie, it is my fault for not 
telling you what I knew, and putting you on your 
guard. Bridget has married a bad man, a gam- 
bler who deals in lottery -tickets and everything 
that is wicked, and I told her plainly she was 
ruined and lost if she married him, and this is 
her revenge and his.” 

“ They would have had no revenge, mamma, 
if number 63 had not drawn the doll.” 

“But number 63 has drawn it,” said Mrs. 
Limber. “No matter, darling ; here comes Mrs. 
Chancel, and we must not wince even if we are 
hurt. She knew Bridget, but she never heard 
of her by her husband’s name, and does not mis- 


THE FAIE. 


89 


trust that it is she who has drawn the French 
doll. Run and take a breath of fresh air and 
drink a glass of water, but not too cold, for j^our 
blood is all in your face.” 

“ Pray, my dear Mrs. Limber,” said Mrs. Chan- 
cel, in her biting little way, “ how long have you 
known the Looneys, and who is the fortunate 
Miss Bridget who walks off with Centuria, as 
Sam calls her?” 

“ She seems to be a person who has paid her 
money,” said Mrs. Limber, determined not to be 
drawn into any explanations, and putting the best 
face she could on the catastrophe. 

“ Oh ! it’s a genuine she, then ? I thought 
that perhaps it might be some incognita who had 
turned Biddy for to-night and stooped to conquer. 
Is she a princess of Fenia ? ” 

“ Perhaps she is,” said Mrs. Limber, evidently 
disconcerted and without an arrow in her quiver. 

“ You look so very, very tired,” said Mrs. 
Chancel, compassionately, “ we ought all of us 
to go ; and Mr. Chancel is waiting in the cold for 
me. He was having a good laugh over what he 
was sure must have been a fictitious or symbolical ' 
Bridget, but I must go and stop it. What a pity I 
a spoiled joke is so very disagreeable.” 

FortunaWy, the leave-takings of other and 


90 


MES. LIMBEe’s EAFFLE. 


less satirical guests interposed to cut Mrs. Chan- 
cel short, and their congratulations and good 
wishes went far toward restoring Mrs. Limber’s 
equanimity. The necessity of giving her final 
directions for the night and of seeing that some 
order was brought out of the chaos of the fair, 
was a more effectual restorative, and she strove 
to dismiss, for the present at least, the disagree- 
able result of the raffle. 

“ Sam, my dear boy,” said she, “ take the doll 
and put it with all its belongings in one of those 
large paper boxes and leave it on the top shelf 
of my cedar closet ; lock the door and bring me 
the key. I shall be in my dressing-room. Every- 
thing else here is to be placed in the refreshment- 
room and disposed of to-morrow. I have sent 
Bessie to bed, and your father went up-stairs half 
an hour ago.” 

“ I wonder what possessed Dick Folio to buy 
that subscription-list ? ” said Sam, as he set about 
obeying his mother’s instructions. “Dick is 
pretty sharp, and five-dollar bills do not grow on 
every bush, at least not in a young lawyer’s 
shrubbery.” 

When Sam brought the key to his mother, 
she was closing the blinds of her window, accord- 
ing to her custom, and pausing as she did so for 


THE FAm. 


91 


a glance into the cold, dark night. Sam looked 
out with her upon the quiet village. 

“ What is that bright light in the tall window 
down there?” asked his mother. “It is after 
half-past twelve, and everybody who has not had 
a fair in the house ought to be sound asleep.” 

“ That,” said Sam, after a moment’s observa- 
tion, “ is the printing-ojBSce of the Spindle Free- 
booter. They are doing night-work ; very likely 
setting up some libel against an honest man 
who is in bed and asleep. Slander is the chief 
resource of the press, nowadays.” 

“That is very true,” said Mrs. Limber, ac- 
quiescing easily in Sam’s off-hand, midnight de- 
preciation of the greatest of the powers that be ; 
and she added with a sigh, as she closed the 
blinds and fastened her window, “ Dear me ! what 
«hall we do with these newspapers ? ” 


CHAPTER VII. 


THE DAT AFTER THE FAIR. 

In spite of the fatigues and excitements of 
the fair, the Limber family assembled in full 
force at the breakfast-table the next morning. 
Mrs. Limber and Bessie were unusually quiet, 
and their appetites were evidently below the or- 
dinary standard. Sam was in unabated spirits, 
and Mr. Limber, according to his wont, serenely 
cheerful. 

The door-bell rang. 

“ That,” said Mrs. Limber, “ is the man from 
Leif’s. He was to come early this morning to 
take away the extra china.” 

The man from Delf’s proved to be a boy from 
somewhere else. 

“ He is in the hall,” said the waiting-maid, 
“ and wants to see Mr. Limber very particular.” 

“ Let him come in here,” said Mr. Limber. 

“ And see that he wipes his feet on the out- 
side door-mat, and leaves his cap in the hall,” 


THE DAY AETER THE FAIR. 


93 


said Mrs. Limber. “ But why not let him wait, 
husband ? — ^you never know what kind of places 
these boys come out of.” 

But the boy was already at the dining-room 
door. It was plain enough that the place he had 
come out of was a lawyer’s office. He had in his 
hands a big bundle of papers, unmistakably legal, 
tied with red tape, and arranged with evident 
precision ; and he was equipped with a memo- 
randum-book and a pencil. He was a chunky 
boy, rubicund of hair and face, somewliat belliger- 
ent in his general aspect, and looked as though 
he might have been, as perhaps he was, the line- 
al descendant of several generations of deputy- 
sheriffs. A view of his side-pocket disclosed the 
fact that he had been engaged in eating a large 
apple, upon which he had temporarily staid pro- 
ceedings in order to attend to the business in 
hand. 

“ David Limber, Martha Limber, Samuel Lim- 
ber, Bessie Limber,” said the boy, as if he were 
calling the roll of the entire family, “ I have got 
summonses and complaints for all of you,” and 
he evidently knew by sight the respective per- 
sons whose names he had pronounced, for he pro- 
ceeded, in the most deliberate manner, to draw 
certain papers from his bundle and to deliver one 


94 


MES. LIMBEe’s EAFFLE. 


to Mr. Limber and another to Sam, who was seat- 
ed at his father’s left hand. He then crossed, as 
formally as though he were following a stage di- 
rection, to Mr. Limber’s right, and, after a delib- 
erate survey of Bessie, thrust a third paper at 
her, which he put into her hand without any co- 
operation on her part, very much as packages of 
prize-candy and other light wares are devolved 
on unwilling recipients in railway-cars. 

“ I would like to know,” said the aggressive 
boy, as the paper fell on Bessie’s lap, “ whether 
you are a minor, under the age of fourteen 
years ? ” 

“ What an impudent boy 1 ” said Bessie, turn- 
ing to her mother. 

“ Oh, very well ; if you decline to answer, I 
will make sure, and serve a copy on your father, 
mother, or guardian. I’ve got plenty of them.” 

“ Oh, I am over fourteen — seventeen last 
March,” cried Bessie, fearing lest she had in- 
volved the family in some new trouble by not 
telling the whole truth instantly, and yet en- 
tirely unable to comprehend the behavior of her 
strange interlocutor. 

Mrs. Limber had made up her mind at an early 
stage of this proceeding that it was in some way 
-connected with the taking of the census, and had 


THE DAT AFTER THE FAIR. 


95 


rather enjoyed Bessie’s evident alarm ; but there 
was something in the tone and manner of this 
domineering boy which inspired her with a vague 
dread, as he left Bessie after making a careful 
note in his memorandum-book, and invaded the 
side of the table sacred to the breakfast-tray and 
the coffee-urn, and thrust a fourth paper in the 
direction of her own proper person. In her re- 
peated experiences of census-takers, she had al- 
ways found them, though of an inquiring turn of 
mind, very affable in their manners and disposed 
to deal gently with the subjects of their in- 
quisition so long as they were liberally plied 
with family statistics. But this disagreeable 
youth had a malevolent look which roused all her 
antipathies and apprehensions; she pushed back 
her chair, and, spreading out her napkin, as if to 
guard against the danger of personal contact, 
gave him what she was in the habit of describing 
as “ one of her looks.” All of no avail ; the un- 
terrified boy would have served process on Medu- 
sa herself. Mrs. Limber receded an inch farther. 
“ How dare you intrude into a gentleman’s house 
and behave in this indecent way ? I will have 
none of your papers,” said she, in her most for- 
bidding tone ; “ you must leave the room and the 
house instantly. — Jane, run to the stable and call 


96 


MES. LIMBEe’s EAEFLE. 


Thomas. — Mr. Limber, I am amazed that you al- 
low such impudence to go on ; this boy ought to 
be punished.” 

“ I’ve delivered a copy of the summons and 
complaint to you personally and left it with you,” 
said the boy, deliberately, as he jerked the paper 
on Mrs. Limber’s napkin ; “and you are known 
to me to be the person named therein as the de- 
fendant, Martha Limber, and that’s good service 
whether you choose to take hold of the paper or 
not; that’s all, you needn’t call Thomas, he isn’t 
a defendant. Good-morning,” and the boy depart- 
ed, taking an enormous bite of the apple as he 
left. 

Mrs. Limber sat in silence, with her chair still 
pushed back from the table, the rejected docu- 
ment at her feet, whither the law of gravitation, 
to which even the processes of justices’ courts 
are subject, had taken it, under the impulse of a 
little shake of the napkin on which it had lodged. 
So near an approach to a personal insult she had 
never experienced as at the hands of this shame- 
less boy, and she was ^speechless under the shock. 

“ I declare,” said Sam, who all this time had 
been busily engaged in reading the document 
handed to him, and also the one which had been 
served on his father — “ I declare this is the coolest 


THE DAY AFTER THE FAIR. 


97 


thing yet ! There never was anything like it in 
this world.” 

“ Sam,” said Bessie, ‘‘ what is it ? Is it any- 
thing dreadful ? ” 

“ Dreadful ? I guess you will think so 1 It 
is all about the raffle.” 

“ Then, don’t tell me anything more — the 
very thought of that raffle is perfectly awful. 
But I suppose I must. Do go on, Sam, tell me 
all, tell me the very worst — oh, why do you keep 
me in this fearful suspense ? ” 

“ It is a suit at law,” said Sam ; “ the over- 
seers of the poor of the town of Spindle have sued 
papa and mamma in Justice Hazey’s court for. 
three hundred and ten dollars. Just hear this, 
will you — it is all printed : it says that the de- 
fendants — that’s papa and mamma — ‘ did, hereto- 
fore, on the fifteenth day of December in this 
present year ’ — that’s short for yesterday, you 
see — ‘ at the village of Spindle, in the town of 
Spindle, set up and propose a certain chattel, to 
wit ’ — oh, do listen to this ! — ‘ an image or effigy 
of the female, human form, composed, as to the 
head and neck thereof, of wax, and as to the rest, 
residue, and remainder thereof, of muslin stuffed 
with bran, sawdust, or other minute particles ’ — 
there’s a legal description of a doll for you — ‘ to 


98 


MRS. LIMBER^ S RAFFLE. 


be raffled for to certain persons who then and 
there respectively paid, or contracted to pay, the 
sum of one dollar for the chance of obtaining the 
same, there being in all one hundred chances, and 
the value of the said chattel so set up being then 
and there one hundred dollars ’ — that’s a whop- 
per,” said Sam — “ ‘ contrary to the provisions of 
the Revised Statutes of this State ; wherefore, the 
said plaintiffs ’ — that’s the overseers of the poor,” 
added Sam — “ ‘ demand judgment against the said 
defendants ’ — that’s papa and mamma, you know 
— ‘ for the sum of three hundred dollars, being 
three times the value of the article so set up ’ — 
I should think it was — ‘ together with the further 
sum of ten dollars, making in all three hundred 
and ten dollars and the costs of this action ’ — hol- 
loa 1 Richard Folio, plaintiff’s attorney.’ ” 

“ So, Dick Folio is at the bottom of all this,” 
said Mrs. Limber. How utterly contemptible ! — 
Of course, husband, you will take no notice of 
it.” 

“ But dear mamma,” interposed Bessie, “ why 
did he make Sam and me take these horrid pa- 
pers ? ” 

“Wait a minute,” said Sam; “that’s only 
one suit. Now here is another against me, and 
if your paper is like mine Bessie, I guess there is 


THE DAY AETER THE FAIR. 


99 


another against you. Let me read : ‘ The over- 
seers of the poor complain of the defendant ’ — 
that’s me this time — ‘ and show that heretofore ’ 
— ^just the same as in papa’s — ‘ he raffled for a cer- 
tain chattel, to wit ’ — and then it goes on and de- 
scribes Centuria, just the same, bran, sawdust, 
and all — ‘ wherefore they demand judgment for 
ten dollars and costs — Richard Folio, plaintiff’s 
attorney.’ Now, Bess, yours is identically the 
same, and they are after you for ten dollars.” 

“ But I have not got ten dollars,” said Bessie, 
“ I spent all my allowance at the fair.” 

“ Then you will have to go to jail,” said Sam, 
remorselessly. 

“ Sister Bessie sha’n’t go to jail,” shrieked 
little David Limber, aged six, suddenly aroused 
from his oatmeal-porridge to a sense of the ca- 
lamity impending over the family, and giving a 
sympathetic howl, and exhibiting incipient symp- 
toms of strangulation. His mother rushed to his 
rescue, and jerking his arms suddenly over his 
head — a process by which she had saved many 
infantile lives, and repeatedly entitled herself to 
the medal of the Humane Society — averted the 
catastrophe. Sam was duly reproved for his 
heartless remark, and after a penitent disclaimer 
on his part and a positive assertion that Bessie 


100 


MES. LBIBEe’s baffle. 


should not go to jail, David was consoled and re- 
sumed his porridge, while his elder brother pur- 
sued his researches into the papers. 

“ This thing is all printed,” said Sam, “ ex- 
cepting the names, and they are written in ; my 
name is written in mine, and your name in yours. 
I do believe they have gone and sued every one 
of the whole hundred subscribers — ^just think of 
that!” 

“That is why Dick Folio wanted the sub- 
scription-list,” said Bessie, with a sudden access 
of light. “ It was to get the names to write in 
these frightful summonses, or whatever they are 
called.” 

“No wonder he was willing to bid five dol- 
lars for it,” said Sam; “ why, he has got a hundred 
suits for ten dollars apiece, besides this big one 
against papa and mamma for three hundred and 
ten dollars, that makes a hundred and one suits 
in one day. — And now, mamma,” said Sam, still 
pushing his discoveries, “ don’t you recollect we 
saw the Freebooter office lighted up last night, 
and wondered what they were doing there ? It 
is plain as day, now, that they were busy print- 
ing off these very papers, and Dick Folio had 
only to write the names in from the list. Just 
think of that boy going all over Spindle this 


THE DAY AFTER THE FAIR. 


101 


morning, eating apples and serving everybody 
with these papers I It was mighty smart in Dick 
Folio, though.” 

Mrs. Limber was in a white heat. The truth 
had slowly dawned upon her. “ David,” said 
she, “do you really imagine that all the people 
w^ho took shares in the raffle are sued for ten 
dollars a piece by this impertinent Dick Folio?” 

“ So it would seem, my dear,” said Mr. Lim- 
ber, who was quietly plodding through his break- 
fast. 

“It is too disgraceful to think of,” said Mrs. 
Limber. “ You must put a stop to it immedi- 
ately. Is there no way of having him arrested ? 
And that boy too ? ” 

“ Really,” said Mr. Limber, “ it looks more like 
his having us arrested.” 

“ And to think,” continued Mrs. Limber, “ that 
this same Richard Folio was once a boy in my 
Sunday-school class, when he was no bigger than 
our Davy. Of course, he can never, never cross 
the threshold of this house again.” 

“ It is thirteen hundred and ten dollars, all 
told,” said Sam, still absorbed in the legal docu- 
ments on which he was making marginal notes 
and calculations ; “ and costs besides in one hun- 
dred and one suits. Now costs are something 


i02 


MRS. limber’s raffle. 


that you can’t calculate. There is no telling 
what they may run up to.” 

“ Thirteen hundred and ten dollars,” said 
Bessie, despairingly, “is more than the whole 
profits of the fair.” 

“ There is one consolation,” said Sam ; “ I paid 
over all the cash, last night, to Mr. Mix, the treas- 
urer, and they cannot stop that : it was twelve 
hundred and sixteen dollars and one cent. I have 
got his receipt for it.” 

“ What on earth have the overseers of the 
poor got to do with all this ? ” demanded Mrs. 
Limber ; “ do they oversee everybody, and do 
you suppose that Dick Folio has any right to 
bring them into his impudent schemes ? ” 

“ I believe,” said Mr. Limber, “ by the law 
any one who sets up a thing at a raffle is liable 
to pay a penalty to the overseers of the poor of 
three times its value and ten dollars besides, just 
as Sam has read from the paper, and everybody 
who takes a chance in the raffle is liable to pay a 
penalty of ten dollars.” 

“ What an infamous law ! ” said Mrs. Limber, 
“ and then to start it up and set it agoing, be- 
tweeen night and morning, against respectable 
people like us, while thieves, and drunkards, and 
murderers, and burglars, go scot-free ! Who in 


THE DAY AFTER THE FAIR. 


103 


the world would ever suspect that there were 
any such penalties kept concealed like traps to 
be sprung* upon honest people in their own 
houses, and at the breakfast-table, and by boys 
too ? ” 

“ My dear,” said Mr. Limber, “ every one is 
supposed to know the law, and I told you long 
ago that I believed the raffle was against the law, 
and I warned you to take care, but you went on, 
and now it appears that the law is going to be 
enforced against us. Respectable people are just 
as good defendants as thieves or drunkards, and 
at all events those who dance must pay the 
piper. That’s good law.” 

“But, papa,” interposed Bessie, “why should 
they sue you, as well as mamma and us? We 
had the raffle, and not you. I thought married 
women had everything separate nowadays. I 
mean property, and debts, and all that.” 

“ Yes, Bessie, but a husband still has the 
privilege of paying for his wife’s wrongful acts 
when they are done in his presence. I learned 
that when I was on the jury, last winter. If a 
married lady should, of her own sweet will, but 
in presence of her husband, bite off the nose of 
another lady, the law would presume that the 
biting was his act, and not his wife’s, and he, and 


104 


MES. LIMBEe’s EAETLE. 


not she, would have to pay the market value of 
the lost nose. That’s what they call the common 
law, I believe.” 

“ It seems very uncommon to me,” said Bes- 
sie, “ but I suppose I don’t know anything about 
it ; but, dear papa, another thing,” and here she 
brightened suddenly, “how can they sue me? I 
am only an infant, Sam keeps telling me, and 
he says I am incapable of making a con- 
tract.” 

“ So you are,” said Sam, “ but I never said 
you were incapable of committing a tort.” 

“ What in the world is a tort ? ” 

“A tort,”" said Sam, solemnly, “ is any naughti- 
ness for which you can be made to pay damages. 
If you were to hire Jack Rumble’s pony and 
phaeton, to go from here to Shuttleville, he could 
not sue you for the price, because you are an 
infant; but if you over-drove the pony, as you 
probably would, and killed him, that would be a 
tort, and he could sue you and make you pay 
damages, just the same as if you were as old as 
Methusaleh.” 

“ But, Sam,’^ persisted his sister, “ if I am an 
infant, how can I know the law ? and, besides, in- 
fancy ought to excuse a great deal of tortiness or 
whatever you call it.” 


THE DAY AFTER THE FAIR. 


105 


“ Oh, we have a legal maxim that disposes of 
any such plea — ‘ malitia supplet cetatim,'* ” 

“ And what does that mean ? ” 

“ It means that, in the eye of the law, the 
younger you are the worse you are — so there’s 
no help for you, Bessie; you must pawn youi 
furs and pay up.” 

“ Our trip to JSTew York may as well be given 
up,” said Mrs. Limber, in a coldly-despairing 
tone ; “ we are doubly disgraced. Last night’s 
experience was bad enough, but this is a hundred 
times worse. We shall be the talk of the whole 
town.” 

“ The trip to New York must not be given 
up,” said Mr. Limber, cheeringly. “We will go 
as we have arranged, and better there than here. 
T will put this affair in Mr. Calendar’s hands, and 
it will keep till we come back. — Sam, when is the 
summons returnable? ” 

“ Monday week, eight days ; this is a justice’s 
court, you see, and the time is short. But we 
shall be home on Saturday night, and, if old Cal 
endar doesn’t get up some defense, it will be the 
first time he has failed to do it. Who knows but 
the law is unconstitutional ? ” 

Mr. Limber shook his head. “ There is one 
comfort,” said Mrs. Limber, after her husband had 


106 


MRS. LIMBER S RAFFLE. 


gathered up the papers and taken his departure. 
“ Bridget Looney will have to pay ten dollars as 
well as the rest.” 

“ She can well afford it,” said Bessie ; “ she 
gets the doll.” 

“ I did not think of that,” said her mother. 

“ And besides,” said Sam, “ she has gone off 
to parts unknown and can’t be served.” 

“ I did not think of that either,” said Mrs. 
Limber. 


CHAPTER VriL 


PUBLIC OPINION IN SPINDLE. 

There was hardly a house in Spindle in 
which there was not a defendant. If Mr. Rich- 
ard Folio’s object was to make a sensation, he 
certainly had succeeded, and, if it is an advantage 
to be discussed, he was enjoying it to the fullest 
extent. Public opinion, with its usual disdain of 
fact and law, made up its own case. Dick Folio 
was denounced as a designing scamp of an at- 
torney, whose innocent victims (a rather ignoble 
army of martyrs) were walking about Spindle, 
to the number of nearly fivescore, each suffering 
under the same summons and complaint, and 
without an available remedy or defense. 

Even those who had taken no chances in the 
raffle, and who had not been at the fair, were in- 
dignant that so many people should be sued. A 
hundred actions in a forenoon seemed as great an 
outrage on the community as a corner in grain or 
an over-issue of stock. Nothing but a criminal 


108 


MRS. limber’s raffle. 


design on the peace of society could have in- 
volved a whole population in such a sudden and 
unparalleled vortex of litigation. Some of the 
more aggressive defendants talked loudly about 
blackmail, and hinted that, if the grand-jury were 
in session, a case of conspiracy might be made 
out and the tables turned on the prosecutors. 

With such voices in the air and on the street- 
corners, Mr. Folio’s personal safet}'^ would have 
been imperilled, had he been within reach. But 
it happened that he had left Spindle, on a busi- 
ness errand, early the same morning on which 
he woke up and found himself infamous. After 
satisfying himself that the raffle-suits were all 
properly launched, he had gone about his other 
business, which had been delayed a day for the 
express purpose of enabling him to attend to 
this exigent prosecution. Rumors of his sudden 
unpopularity reached him on his way to the sta- 
tion, in the gray of the dawn, but he had time 
only to send a hurried line in pencil, by the vigi- 
lant boy, to his clients, the overseers of the poor, 
committing his injured reputation to their keep- 
ing, before the whistle of the express-train 
warned him to purchase his ticket and begin his 
journey. 

Mr. Folio’s office was on a prominent part of 


PUBLIC OPINION IN SPINDLE. 


109 


the main street of Spindle, on the ground-floor, 
and the door was reached by a single step. 
During his absence the indefatigable boy kept 
watch and ward over all his interests and posses^ 
Isions. Under Mr. Folio’s training he had become 
well versed in the arts, offensive and defensive, 
belonging to his important though subordinate 
sphere, and had been specially instructed as to 
his personal behavior and well drilled in a sort 
of manual adapted to every emergency of an 
office-boy who, in his intercourse with chance 
visitors, might be entertaining clients unawares. 

Toward the close of the afternoon this vigi- 
lant custodian, tired of watching the leisurely 
snow-storm which was in progress, and having 
completed a course of light gymnastics, to the 
detriment of Mr. Folio’s office furniture, was 
quietly engaged in a corner of the room, polishing 
his shoes. He varied the monotony of this occu- 
pation by eating an apple and conducted ^he two 
pursuits, wholly at his ease, discovering no in- 
compatibility between them, except the slight 
flavor of blacking occasionally imparted to the 
fruit. 

While thus engaged he was suddenly intei'- 
rupted by an octavo volume, bound in law calf, 
which described a curve from the table in the 
8 


110 


ME8. limber’s raffle. 

centre of the room to the side of his head, strik- 
ing it a glancing blow which, without seriously 
disturbing his equilibrium, roused him to the con- 
sciousness that a visitor required his attention. 

“ Holloa ! ” shouted the boy, not speaking 
from the manual, “ what do you mean by heaving 
Blackstone at me, like that?” 

“I wish it was a paving-stone,” said the 
caller, a stout gentleman in a crimson cravat, 
with a mottled complexion, whom the observant 
boy immediately recognized as Mr. Bender, a 
gentleman of sporting proclivities and a perma- 
nent boarder at the Spread-Eagle Hotel, who 
kept three horses and a dog at Rumble’s livery- 
stable. “ Where’s your boss ? ” 

“ Gone to Albany, to the Court of Appeals,” 
said Mr. Folio’s representative, this time accord- 
ing to the letter of the manual. “ If there’s any 
word to leave please write it down, and if it’s 
money I’ll receipt for it.” 

“ I called in to punch his head, that’s all,” 
said Mr. Bender, turning toward the door. 

“ If you’ll fix a time I’ll put it in his diary, 
and he’ll call and save you the trouble of coming 
again,” said the faithful youth, still adhering to 
the text of the manual. 

Mr. Bender looked at him with a vengeful 


PUBLIC OPINION IN SPINDLE. 


Ill 


eye. “ I say, you must be the young rascal,” he 
bawled out, “ who got me out of bed yesterday 
morning on false pretenses and poked papers at 
me through the crack of the door, making be- 
lieve it was a telegram.” 

“ I guess I am,” said the boy, keeping the 
table between himself and the self-disclosed de- 
fendant, with his hand on the inkstand as an 
available projectile in case of need. “ You was 
the only one out of the whole lot I wasn’t sure of, 
because you look such a heap different when you 
ain’t fixed up. I didn’t know but I had waked up 
your great grandfather and served him by mis- 
take, but you have admitted service and now I’m 
all right.” 

Mr. Bender had not been unobservant of the 
advantage which the inkstand gave to the inter- 
esting and ingenuous lad, and contented himself 
with casting a withering look upon him, and say- 
ing in a lofty tone with a few familiar maledic- 
tions, that both he and his master had better keejv 
out of his way, especially if he happened to have 
a horsewhip in his hand ; and so, keeping his eye 
warily on the inkstand, Mr. Bender backed out 
of the door. 

He had proceeded along the street about a 
dozen yards, when he became suddenly conscious 


112 


MRS . limber’s raffle. 


that a well-packed snowball had flattened itself 
on the nape of his neck, at the summit of the ver- 
tebral column, and was taking a downward course 
along the same manly portion of his frame. He 
executed a rapid right-about face, to the infinite 
amusement of a crowd of schoolboys, who were 
disporting on the sidewalk in the new-fallen snow, 
and whom he immediately denounced as the per- 
petrators of this gross personal outrage. They 
shouted a chorus of denial, and were unanimous 
in attributing it, by significant gestures, to an 
elderly gentleman with an umbrella and a carpet- 
bag, who was making his way along the slippery 
pavement near Mr. Folio’s office with great dif- 
ficulty. Mr. Bender instantly and profanely re- 
jected this glacial theory. After a moment of 
hesitation and with a spasmodic effort, only par- 
tially successful, to rid himself of so much of the 
snowball as remained accessible on the top of 
his collar, he retraced his steps in the direction 
of Mr. Folio’ s office, to find, on reaching it, the 
door securely locked, and the legend conspicu- 
ous on the outside — “ Gone to supper.” 

The next morning public opinion faced about, 
as rapidly as Mr. Bender had done. • The Spindle 
Freehooter made its weekly appearance on that 
day, and in a conspicuous column appeared the 
following : 


PUBLIC OPINION IN SPINDLE. 


113 


“ Oaed to the Public. — The overseers of the poor 
of the town of Spindle think it proper, in the absence 
of their attorney, Mr. Eichard Folio, to state that the 
suits brought by them against the parties concerned in 
the recent rafiQe were not, in any manner, directly or 
indirectly, instigated or set on foot by that gentleman. 
On the contrary, Mr. Folio had no knowledge of the 
subject until he was employed as the attorney of the 
overseers, who are solely responsible for the prosecution 
of the suits, and who intend to enforce the law. 

Hugh Bouldee, 

Overseer^ for Self and Associates f 

Mr. Boulder was a well-known contractor who 
had built most of the roads radiating from Spin- 
dle Court-House, and bridged all the streams in 
the town. He stood over six feet in his stockings, 
and reckoned his w^eight by the stone instead of 
the pound. At convivial gatherings he was ac- 
customed to break pokers over his arm, and at 
primary meetings he was relied upon to preserve 
harmony by putting refractorj^ delegates out of 
the most convenient window. A card from such 
a source carried conviction. Besides its intrinsic 
weight, it was aided by a brief editorial comment 
at the foot. The editor of the Freebooter had put 
his paper to press with a flaming editorial, re- 
flecting public sentiment in the convex mirror of 


114 


MRS. limber’s raffle. 


journalism, with the flagrant heading, “Blue 
Law in Spindle. — Have we a Blackmailer among 
us ? ” But Mr. Boulder’s opportune appearance, 
with his official card, accompanied by an adver- 
tisement for certain proposals for building, signed 
by the overseers, immediately metamorphosed the 
Freebooter into an organ for the prosecution. 
The projected editorial was suppressed, and the 
press stopped to replace it with the overseers’ 
card and the following paragraph double lead- 
ed: 

“ The above official announcement will efiPect- 
ualty annihilate any disparaging and unfounded 
rumors reflecting upon our esteemed fellow-citi- 
zen, Mr. Richard Folio, who is universally re- 
spected as one of the brightest luminaries of the 
Spindle bar. It also sheds new lustre on our dis- 
tinguished overseers of the poor. Spindle is a 
law-abiding community. While, as a manufact- 
uring centre, we claim that the primary object of 
all law is the protection of home industry, we 
concede that incidental protection to the public 
morals is properly within its province. Let the 
avenging bolts fall where they may, the Free- 
booter stands immovably on the ancient maxim, 
‘ Fiat justitia^ mat coelum ! ’ ” 

A copy of the Freebooter found its way, with 


PTJBLIO OPINION IN SPINDLE. 


115 


Mr. Limber’s letters, to his hotel in New York. 
It contained, in addition to the important matter 
we have already extracted from its columns, an 
elaborate description of the fair, in a style more 
worthy of the genius and gallantry of the metro- 
politan press than of a rural sheet, and discreetly 
free from any allusion to the raffle. The compli- 
ments showered on the lady managers were pro- 
fuse, and Mrs. Limber perused the article with a 
sense of relief and satisfaction. But the card 
of the overseers failed to convince her of Dick 
Folio’s innocence. She tersely remarked in ref- 
erence to it that “ you couldn’t believe anything 
3^ou saw in a newspaper.” This, it is true, was 
immediately after she had indorsed the article 
touching the fair as thoroughly accurate, but this 
slight inconsistency gave her no trouble. If any- 
body else was imposed upon, she was not, and if 
she was certain of anything it was that the hun- 
dred-headed hydra of litigation which was de- 
vastating Spindle had been warmed into life by 
the cupidity and malevolence of greedy Dick 
Folio. 

Bessie, who was bent on having “a good 
time ” in ISTew York, even if, on her return home, 
she was to go straight from the station to the 
Spindle jail, read the account of the fair with 


116 


MRS. limber’s raffle. 


sparkling eyes, and fully accepted Mr. Folio’s 
vindication at the hands of the overseers. 

“ I never thought for a moment Dick would 
do anything mean,” she said ; “ but, dear Sam, 
what does fiat justitia^ ruat something, mean ? ” 

“ It means,” said Sam, “ that, when the sky 
falls, the lawyers will catch all the larks.” 

There was still another and less conspicuous 
paragraph in the Freebooter which escaped the 
notice of Mrs. Limber and the young people, but 
which, later in the day, and when alone in his 
parlor, Mr. Limber read with a quiet satisfaction. 
It ran thus : 

“We call attention to the advertisement, 
in another column, of the overseers of the poor, 
for proposals for building a hospital-wing. It 
is to be erected at once, and we have the very 
best authority for saying that the expense is 
already provided for without calling upon the 
tax-paj'ers. At this Christmas season, such an 
announcement is specially timely and gratify- 
ing.” 

As Mr. Limber cut this editorial notice from 
the newspaper, and then looked up the adver- 
tisement to which it referred, and cut that also 
from another page, and folded both away in his 
pocket-book, he seemed well pleased. His in- 


PUBLIC OPINION IN SPINDLE. 


117 


ventive expression pervaded his face, and gave it 
a bright and satisfied air. 

“ So far, so good,” was his brief soliloquy, 
and he went to his dinner with a complacent 
smile and a good appetite. 


CHAPTER IX, 


FIAT JUSTITIA. 

Justice Hazey’s court-room had never be- 
fore been so thronged as on the return-day of 
the “ raffle-suits,” as they had come to be popu- 
larly designated. The first resentments had sub- 
sided ; misery loves company, and the great ma- 
jority of the defendants were reconciled to a 
calamity in which there was so large and respect- 
able a companionship. It was generally under- 
stood that Mr. Calendar would represent Mr. 
Limber, the chief victim of the prosecution, and, 
as he was sued for the considerable sum of three 
hundred dollars, it was expected that all the re- 
sources of the law would be availed of in his be- 
half. He was known to be a good fighter, and 
to have succeeded in all his patent-suits. Every 
defense interposed by Mr. Limber would, of 
course, inure to the benefit of the other defend- 
ants, of whom there were ninety-and-nine, process 
having been served on every one of the subscrib- 


FIAT JTJSTITIA. 


119 


ers to the raffle, with the single exception of 
Bridget Looney, who was enjoying her honey- 
moon beyond the jurisdiction of the Spindle jus- 
tice. There was a natural desire on the part of 
the ninety-and-nine that Mr. Limber’s should be 
made a test-case, to be carried through all the 
courts of the State, at his individual expense and 
risk, and, if possible, to the Supreme Court of 
the United States at Washington, a distant and 
dimly-comprehended tribunal which disappointed 
suitors in State courts are very apt to imagine 
would redress all their wrongs, could it once get 
cognizance of them on appeal. 

Besides the parties immediately concerned, 
a large body of spectators had gathered in the 
court-room — village loungers and do-nothings, 
old vagabonds who came to court every day, in 
winter to keep warm at the expense of the town 
— a crowd of young people, anxious to see how 
their impleaded acquaintances would figure as 
violators of the law — and a respectable number 
of elderly gentlemen, who sustained the action 
of the overseers in the interest of a strict moral- 
ity. In addition to these, the legal profession 
was represented by every one in and around 
Spindle who had any connection with the prac- 
tice of the law, a collection of worthies for whom 


120 


MRS. limber’s raffle. 


nothing could be more attractive than the nov- 
elty of a hundred suits, and the prospect of a 
hundred trials. 

Mr. Limber and Mr. Calendar were among 
the earliest comers. Mr. Folio, with his papers 
in good order, was seated at the table in front of 
the justice’s desk. Behind him waited the in- 
dispensable and now historic boy, furtively en- 
joying a large pippin, and eying the numerous de- 
fendants grouped about him, with the keen satis- 
faction of a sportsman who has bagged his game. 

Sam and Bessie were ensconced in a distant 
corner, trying to look perfectly innocent and un- 
concerned. Their mother, whose return to Spin- 
dle had revived her earlier sense of mortification, 
had begged Bessie to remain at home with her, 
feeling that a stigma rested on the fair name of 
Limber, which the proceedings in court might 
deepen into an ineffaceable brand. But Bessie’s 
curiosity was stronger than her mother’s fears, 
and Mrs. Limber finally yielded, parting with 
her, as Bessie said, as if she were on her way to 
the block. 

The justice had never before been over- 
whelmed with so large a docket or such an array 
of parties. He had begun life as a blacksmith, 
and in his experience at the forge, having never 


FIAT JUSTITIA. 


121 


known a horse brought to be shod which did not 
require shoeing, he assumed, on the bench, that 
no plaintiff came into court who was not entitled 
to relief. Accordingly, he administered the law 
oy the universal application of the single, simple 
principle that judgment must be given in favor 
of every plaintiff and against every defendant. 
This rule was ordinarily most easy of enforce- 
ment, but now he was sorely puzzled. Here was 
but one set of plaintiffs and a hundred defend- 
ants ; his term of office was about to expire, and 
he was a candidate for reelection. He took his 
seat, quite willing that there should be a post- 
ponement, and half inclined to exercise the right 
which the law gave him, of adjourning the case 
for eight days, without reference to the wishes 
of the parties. Nevertheless, being a somewhat 
pungnacious justice, he showed no signs of 
alarm, and looked as learned as Lord Mansfield, 
while he called the first case, “ The Overseers of 
the Poor of the Town of Spindle against David 
Limber and wife.” 

No adjournment was asked for. Both sides 
were apparently ready, and the perplexity of the 
justice was momentarily increasing, when Mr. 
Calendar rose, with his most forensic air, and 
pronounced the opening formula of “ May — it — 


122 MRS. limber’s raffle. 

please— ^the — court,” with as much suavity and 
gravity as if he had been addressing the Court 
of Appeals. There was something in his tone 
and manner which inspired half the defendants 
with the hope that the overseers and Dick Folio 
were to be demolished at a single blow. A dim 
foreboding crossed the mind of the aggressive 
boy, and he lingered on his apple with a vague 
sense of terror. Mr. Calendar seemed to enjoy 
the sensation he was making, and dwelt upon 
his words. At last he proceeded : 

“ It appears, your honor, that the plaintiffs, 
the overseers of the poor, besides serving the 
summons in this case, which was all the law re- 
quired, have furnished the defendants with a copy 
of the complaint. This they were not obliged 
to do, but I presume there is no objection to it, 
and it fully apprizes us of the claim of the over- 
seers, so that we could answer at once, if it were 
necessary to answer at all. But I think there 
is a fatal defect in the proceedings, and that, 
owing to this defect, neither my clients nor any one 
of these numerous defendants is properly in court.” 

“ Dear Sam,” whispered Bessie to her brother, 
“ how can Mr. Calendar tell such a Sb ? We are 
defendants, and we are in court, and so are all 
the others.” 


FIAT JUSTITIA. 


123 


“ He means, Bess, that vve are not in court in 
the eye of the law.’^ 

“ The law must be dreadfully near-sighted,” 
said Bessie, very much puzzled, “ not to be able 
to see its own court-room full of defendants ; but 
perhaps I know now why Justice is always 
painted blindfold.” 

“ The statute,” said Mr. Calendar, after a 
pause, and measuring his words with even more 
solemnity than at the outset of his remarks, “ re- 
quires that the summons shall be served by a 
constable, but provides that the justice may, 
when he deems it expedient, upon the request of 
a party, by a written authority endorsed on the 
summons, empower any proper person, being of 
lawful age, and not a party in interest, to make 
the service. Now, I see, by looking at the sum- 
mons, that your honor did, at the plaintiffs re- 
quest, depute a person who is not a constable 
to serve it, and I am informed that this person is 
not of lawful age, but is in fact a — ” — here Mr. 
Calendar paused again to give due emphasis to 
his final word — “ a boy ! ” 

“ How do I know that. Squire Calendar ? ” ' 
said the justice ; “ the summons is here, and the 
return is on to it, and it shows good service on 
its face.” 


124 : MRS. limber’s raffle. 

“ I believe the boy is in court,” said Mr. Cal- 
endar, “ and I might say that he shows bad .ser- 
vice on his face, for it is a very juvenile one ; 
but, if the fact must be proved, as I suppose it 
must be, we will prove it. There can be no diffi- 
culty in showing who served the paper.” 

“ I will swear to the boy ! ” called out a sten- 
torian voice, in the outer edge of the crowd, near 
the door of the court-room. 

‘’Silence!” shouted the justice; “this isn’t 
town-meeting.” 

“ Sam,” w^hispered Bessie, “ what horrid man 
is that who called out to the judge ? ” 

“ It is Mr. Bender,” said Sam, “ and it will be 
hard enough to silence him if he once begins to 
talk ; but don’t speak, just now, Bessie — I want 
to hear what will come next.” 

“ We will prove,” said Mr. Calendar, “ that 
the service of the summons and complaint was, 
in every instance, made by this boy, unless the 
fact is admitted, and we wdll follow it up by prov- 
ing that he is not twenty-one years of age.” 

“ You can’t do it, squire,” said the justice ; 
“ that dodge has been tried before now’, and it 
won’t work. No defendant has ever been able to 
make out that that boy is under twenty-one.” 

“ But has any one ever been able to make out 


FIAT JTJSTITIA. 


125 


that he is over twenty-one ? ” asked Mr. Calen- 
dar. 

“ That ain’t the pint, squire,” said the jus- 
tice; “I take it the law presumes everyone to 
be of lawful age until the contrary appears, and 
the contrary doesn’t appear. The court knows 
this boy, and his uncle being the constable and 
having but one leg, he can’t serve summonses 
when there’s any call to be spry, so this here boy 
is deputized, and he does it, and it’s the law of 
this court that he is of lawful age, and that makes 
it lawful ; and what’s more. Squire Calendar, as I 
have to tell them that practises here, which you 
don’t, a defendant in this court who has got a 
defense had better put it in, and not go fooling 
round on technicalities. If you are into a court, 
what odds does it make how you got into it ? 
So jine issue, squire, if you are going to jine, 
and if not I’ll enter judgment.” 

“ Very well,” said Mr. Calendar, good-natured- 
ly, “ if such is the law of the court, I must bow 
to it, and all I can do is to put in a written plea 
to the jurisdiction; alleging the fact that the 
summons was served by a minor, and then I will 
offer to provfe the fact. This will save all our 
rights on appeal.” 

He sat down to prepare the plea. The silence 
9 


126 


MRS. limber’s raffle. 


which followed for a moment was broken by a 
crimson-nosed, irascible old lawyer, long since re 
tired from practice, who had hobbled into the 
court-room and seated himself close to the bench, 
determined to enjoy the legal tilt to the utmost 
of his capacity. Mr. Calendar’s plea to the juris- 
diction delighted him ; and he turned to the jus- 
tice and growled out his satisfaction. 

“ Calendar has got you, judge; there will be 
a venire de novo sure.” 

“ Sam, Sam,” said Bessie, shocked at an inter- 
ruption which the justice disregarded ; “ what is 
that awful old man saying ; is it any thing disre- 
spectful to papa? ” 

“ No,” said Sam, “ it is something disrespect- 
ful to Justice Hazey.” 

“ Well, do tell me what venire de something 
means. Oh, dear 1 I wish I wasn’t so ignorant.’’ 

“ It means a rap over the knuckles by a 
higher court to a lower court, and that is what 
lower courts are getting all the time, and what 
old red nose there thinks this court will get, and 
so do I.” 

“ What a queer queer thing law is I ” solilo- 
quized Bessie. 

But Justice Hazey’s court was not doomed to 
experience the predicted rap over the knuckles. 


FIAT JUSTITIA. 


127 


Mr. Limber had interrupted the preparation of 
Mr. Calendar’s plea by a hurried whisper, and, 
after a brief consultation with his client, the law- 
yer quietly dropped his pen, and, without rising, 
said to the justice that Mr. Limber preferred to 
raise no question as to the service. He would 
therefore waive that point and put in a general 
denial, and let the overseers of the poor produce 
their witnesses, and prove their case, if they could. 
He should be very glad to have them show, by 
competent testimony, the actual value of the 
bran and sawdust, and other particles which 
figured so largely in the complaint, and, in order 
to relieve his honor from the responsibility of 
deciding so difficult a question of fact, he de- 
manded a jury. 

The testy old lawyer was thoroughly dis- 
gusted at this sudden extinction of Mr. Calen- 
dar’s plea. 

“ Why, Calendar, what a fool you are ! Why 
don’t you go to the country, without waiving 
your plea to the jurisdiction ? ” 

“Dear Sam,” said Bessie, trembling with 
alarm, “ is that old man crazy ? He is talking in 
the wildest way ; what does he mean by telling 
Mr. Calendar to go to the country, when he and 
all of us arc in the country now ? ” 


128 


MRS. limber’s raffle. 

“ Going to the country, Bess, is a law-term 
for submitting a case to a jury.” 

“ That is the queerest thing yet,” said Bes- 
sie ; “ why do they call it going to the coun- 
try ? ” 

“Because,” said Sam, “when your case goes 
to a jury, you are literally ‘ all abroad.’ ” 

“ If you want a jury. Squire Calendar,” said 
the justice, proud of his triumph, but very glad 
of the opportunity of getting rid of the case for 
the present, “ I will summon one, and the case 
will stand adjourned to this day week.” 

But Mr. Limber again whispered to Mr. Cal- 
endar, and with increased earnestness of manner. 
After a few minutes’ delay, Mr. Calendar rose 
and said, with his imperturbable smile, that how- 
ever perfect his defense in law and in fact, he 
w^as of course bound to obey implicitly his client’s 
instructions, and these were to waive a jury, and 
indeed to waive every defense. “ Mr. Limber,” 
he continued, “ declines to contest the suit, and 
desires me to say, that he admits all the facts 
stated in the complaint, and is ready to pay the 
penalty, or, rather, the sum of two hundred dol- 
lars — the largest sum for which the justice could 
give judgment.” 

There was a general movement and murmur 


FIAT JUSTITIA. 


129 


of surprise. The relieved boy took a big bite of 
his apple. Justice Hazey, with great alacrity, 
wrote ‘‘ Settled,” in large letters on the summons, 
while the abusive old lawyer growled out : 

“ What a pack of fools I why, Cklendar, that’s 
a/e/o de 

“Sam, dear,” said Bessie, “ what is a felo de 

“ A fellow who commits suicide, and that is 
what papa has gone and done,” replied Sam, who 
could not conceal his disappointment and chagrin 
at this unexpected surrender to the enemy. 

“ O Sam, what do you mean ? ” 

“ I mean he has cut his own throat, but figura- 
tively, Bess, of course — don’t start so — ^^ ou can 
see he is bleeding now.” 

“ Oh, if you mean papa is paying the money, 

I understand it ; dear me, if paying will only end 
this dreadful law business, I shall be only too 
happy. But, Sam, w hat is Dick Folio going to 
do now ? ” 

Dick Folio was going to do a very popular 
thing. As Mr. Limber counted out the two hun- 
dred dollars, he rose and said that of course this 
prompt settlement ended the case against Mr. 
Limber, and no judgment need be entered ; so 
far as the costs were concerned, he preferred to 


130 


MES. LIMBEe’s EAFELE. 


waive them. Then, raising his voice, and looking 
round upon the audience, he added that he was 
prepared to do the same in every case in which 
the defendant would pay the penalty. The cost 
of printing the papers he should wish to collect, 
as the Freebooter office had kept its men at work 
nearly all night, and this expense, though not 
taxable, ought to be provided for, but, beyond 
this actual outlay, he would relinquish all the 
costs if, by so doing, he could, at a personal sac- 
rifice, aid in bringing an unpleasant matter to a 
satisfactory conclusion.” 

The general effect of this little speech was 
very favorable, but the irate old lawyer was now 
trebly disgusted. 

“ Why, F olio, I thought you had some sense. 
What a goose you are to throw away your costs ! 
You ought to be thrown over the bar. It’s five 
dollars by statute in every case, and an execution 
against the person ; you can have the money, or 
a cepi corpus, sure.” 

“ Dear, dear, Sam I ” whispered Bessie, now 
thoroughly alarmed, “ who is cepi corpus — is it 
law Latin for undertaker, and will Dick Folio be 
killed if they throw him over the bar ; is it a very 
high bar? O Sam, Sam, I shall die if I stay 
here any longer.” 


FIAT JU8TITIA. 


131 


“ Cepi said Sam, laughing, “ isn’t a 

person, though old Sheriff Pounder thought so, 
and used to saj’^ that he had searched all through 
the county for him ever since he was sheriff, with- 
out finding him anywhere. It means bail or jail, 
and perhaps jail anyhow.” 

“ What gibberish you talk ! but about throw- 
ing Dick Folio over the bar, or w’hatever it is, 
will he be hurt ?” 

“No, no, Bess, that’s all metaphorical. A 
lawyer is thrown over the bar when he gets too 
wicked to practise in court with all the other 
lawyers.” 

“ I should hardly think any one could ever get 
so wicked as that,” said Bessie, very innocently. 

By this time the two hundred dollars had been 
paid and receipted for, and Justice Hazey was 
beginning to be in mortal fear lest he should 
have something to decide in the next case, when 
Mr. Calendar again took the floor and begged to 
express his appreciation of the liberal and gener- 
ous offer of his learned young friend Mr. Folio, 
and to say further that while “ All’s well that 
ends well ” was not exactly a legal maxim, unless 
indeed Lord Bacon, and not Shakespeare, was 
entitled to the credit of originating it, it rarely 
received a happier application than when lawsuits 


132 


MES. limber’s raffle. 


were settled and lawyers dispensed wdth. Hav- 
ing finished this little preface, Mr. Calendar went 
on to say that he had great satisfaction in an- 
nouncing the further instructions he had just re- 
ceived from his client, Mr. Limber, who proposed, 
as the penalties for which the other ninety-nine 
defendants were sued, were all incurred at his 
own house, and in the course of an entertainment 
intended to contribute only to the pleasure of 
those who participated in it, to pay the penalty 
himself in every case, together with the expense 
of printing to which Mr. Folio had alluded, and 
he was ready to pay the money on the spot. 

There was a general burst of applause. In- 
wardly, Justice Hazey was delighted, and visions 
of a third term floated before his fancy. Out- 
wardly, he hammered on his desk, and reminded 
his audience again that they were in a court- 
room, and not at a town-meeting. The abusive 
old lawyer was in a fourfold rage. 

“ Why, Limber, you are the biggest fool in 
Spindle. Do you want me to sue out a writ de 
lunatico f ” 

“ Sam,” said Bessie, with fresh alarm, “ what 
under the sun is a writ de lunatico f ” 

“ It is a way the courts have of writing a man 
down an ass at the request of his friends and rela- 


FIAT JUSTITIA. 


133 


tives, but which old red-nose there seems to think 
papa has done without any assistance.” 

“ I wish they would take the old wretch out 
of the court-room ; he is a perfect torment. But, 
Sam, who is this that is going to speak now. I 
declare if it isn’t Mr. Bender.” 

It was indeed Mr. Bender, who, upon the con- 
clusion of Mr. Calendar’s remarks, had forced his 
way from a position near the door, where, in 
company with a friend, he was obscurely nursing 
a newly-lighted cigar, to the table in front of the 
justice. He was evidently greatly excited, and 
not a little embarrassed ; but he was bent on dis- 
charging his mind. Mr. Calendar and Mr. Folio 
politely made way for him, while the boy silently 
stole away at his approach, and took a safe posi- 
tion on the side of the table nearest the justice, 
with his eye on the inkstand, and his heart, as 
well as his apple, in his mouth. 

“ Judge — ^your honor — ” said Mr. Bender, “ I 
am entered here, so to speak, as a defendant, and 
and it is my intention to come to time — as always 
— when called.” Here Mr. Bender deposited his 
hat and gloves and cigar on the table with great 
deliberation, also his cane; after doing which, 
he divested himself of his overcoat, adjusted 
his crimson necktie, and continued as follows ; 


134 


MRS. limber’s raffle. 

“ I suppose, judge — your honor— fair play is 
a jewel, even if you are in a court-room, and 
whatever is rulable I abide by, and the referee’s 
decision, or judge’s, or umpire’s, as the case may 
be, all of which your honor is or are, so to speak 
— and I did suppose and others — as this being a 
general entry of all weights and ages against the 
overseers, we would pool our pleas or defenses, 
so to speak — which your honor well understands 
though not exactly expressed in legal forms — but 
whil^ waiting for the call and ready for a fair 
start — here comes Mr. Limber and pays forfeit, 
and, so to speak, withdraws the whole ninety- 
and-nine entries, colts, fillies, and all, and the 
overseers not so much as called, and optional with 
them to walk over the course. Now the ring is 
the same as the turf : if a man’s seconds or backers 
throw up the sponge, all right ; but so long as he 
comes to the scratch and time not up, the same 
as I and other defendants Ijere, there is no such 
thing as giving the stakes to the other side, and 
what we want, judge — your honor — so to speak 
— is to throw up our own sponges when vrhipped 
and not before, and not to be jockeyed out of our 
defenses. Now, judge, I put into the rafile, 
which I believe was drawn regular and on the 
square, not being present myself, but a friend 


FIAT JUSTITIA. 


135 


took it in mj name, likewise in his own, in aid of 
charity — also persuaded by a young lady — hut 
seemingly some one has gone back on us, age and 
weight unknown — and now comes the poor over- 
seers and say it’s all against the law — which we 
supposed as between man and man and the com- 
munity in general was — so to speak — a dead 
letter, but says you the Revived Statues have 
brought it to life and set it a-going — supposing 
it can be set a-going by boys which Mr. Calen- 
dar says it cannot being infants, but Mr. Limber 
waives the boy ; so then if I have had my chance 
in the rafiQe and the consequence is I must cover 
my card here, so to speak, with ten dollars, why, 
judge, your honor, it’s my own ten dollars I want 
to pay and not another man’s, and if it comes to 
that let each one pay his own score, say I, and 
pay it in cash, and if it goes to the poor where’s 
the odds ? ” 

Here Mr. Bender stopped short, and sat down 
suddenly, in the seat vacated by the wary boy, in 
the midst of a burst of applause which the jus- 
tice vainly tried to hammer into silence. Mr. 
Bender’s speech had proved a word in season, 
whether fitly spoken or not. It turned the tide 
of public opinion, and gave a new impulse to the 
ninety-nine who hitherto had thought only of 


136 MBS. limber’s raffle. 

avoiding their liability. Defendants who had 
come to plead now wanted to remain to pay. 
The doctrine that every man should pay his own 
score, and pay it in cash, so forcibly put by Mr. 
Bender, was accepted as heartily as if it had 
been a new discovery instead of an old truth set 
in a new light. 

But now David Limber was on his feet again, 
waving his hand in a deprecatory way, and evi- 
dently meaning to be heard. He was not a man 
of fluent speech, but, knowing what he w’anted, 
and being bent on carrying his point, he was as 
good an orator for the occasion as ever Brutus 
was, or Mark Antony, or even Mr. Bender. 

“ My friends,” said he, quite forgetting that 
whoever was entitled to the last word. Justice 
Hazey was entitled to the first, “ I agree with 
Mr. Bender that every one should pay his own 
score, and the reason why I insist on paying all 
these penalties is simply that they are my score, 
and no other man’s. As Mr. Calendar has said, 
the raffle was in my house, and you were all 
there on my invitation. Now, in old times, as 
we have read in books, and perhaps some one 
here, in his younger days, may have seen, when, 
late at night, a party of good fellows would lock 
the doors and drink their toasts, they had a wild 


FIAT JUSTITIA. 


137 


way of throwing their glasses over their shoul- 
ders and letting them break on the floor. I don’t 
believe any of them got a bill next day from 
their host for broken glass. Now, you came to 
my house to have a merry time, and it seems 
while you were there you broke the law. Well, 
that’s my affair, not yours, the same as if I had 
set you at a game of blind-man’s-buff instead of 
the raffle, and you had run against a mirror or a 
vase and broken it, instead of running against 
the Revised Statutes and breaking them. What 
is done under my own roof, by my own guests, 
is my loss, and I must bear it. And besides, I 
might have known, and perhaps I did know, you 
were running just this risk, and, if I let it go on, 
who else should stand in the gap ? One thing 
you may take my word for, no one has done any- 
thing mean in setting the overseers against you, 
as Mr. Bender seems to think. They could not 
have done differently, and they need this money 
for a new hospital for our poor, and it’s a thing 
I’ve long had in mind to do, and if I do it in this 
way it isn’t paying your debts, but only giving 
a Christmas-present to the poor; and, for the 
chance to do it, I owe you all my thanks.” 

Mr. Limber’s tone and manner showed plainly 
that he meant every word he said, and it would 


138 


MRS. LIMBER S RAFFLE. 


not do to disappoint him. Mr. Bender was 
shaken, but not convinced. He had lost breath 
ill his long speech, and, after Mr. Limber’s re- 
joinder, he was by no means certain of his 
ground, though he had no idea of giving it up. 
But, before he could get on his feet or say a 
word, Mr. Folio jumped up and informed the 
court that, while Mr. Limber was speaking, Mr. 
Calendar had passed over to him his client’s 
check for the nine hundred and ninety-nine dol- 
lars, and had settled with him for the expenses, 
so that all the penalties were paid and the suits 
ended, and the overseers had no claim against 
any one. 

Mr. Bender had just recovered his breath. 
“ Is that rulable ? ” he began ; but the justice 
was having a word with Mr. Calendar, and paid 
no heed to the question. 

The irascible old lawyer, who felt that he had 
been cheated out of his day’s sport, answered it 
for him* “ Rulable ? yes — with such a nest of 
ninnies; put up your money. Bender, and it will 
be the most sensible thing that has been done in 
this court-room to-day. 

“ Then must I let another man pay my for- 
feit?” said Mr. Bender, trying to work himself 
into a passion. 


FIAT JUSTITIA. 


139 


“ Yes,” said the old lawyer, “ its damnum 
ahsque injuria.'*'’ 

“ Dear Sam,” said Bessie, “ that dreadful old 
man is beginning to swear. Why does the judge 
allow it? The constable ought to put him out.” 

“ He is very much put out as it is,” said Sam; 
“ but, Bess, he wasn’t swearing — that was some 
more of his law Latin.” 

“ It sounded very profane. What did it all 
mean ? ” 

“It meant that people are sometimes more 
frightened than hurt, and that is the condition of 
Mr. Bender, and all these other ninety-and-nine, 
thanks to papa.” 

“ Sam,” said Bessie, after a moment’s pause, 
“isn’t papa perfectly splendid?” 

“ He has paid out a lot of money,” said Sam, 
thoughtfully. 

“ For all that,” said Bessie, “ it is gorgeous — 
oh, I do want to kiss papa ever so much ! ” 

“ There is nothing to hinder,” said Sam ; 
“ everybody is going away and we will go too, 
and let mamma know how this has turned out.” 

Bessie was by her father’s side in a moment, 
and her arms were around his neck. David Lim- 
ber was a hero to his daughter, and she wanted 
to give him an ovation. Her feeling was largely 


140 


MRS. limber’s raffle. 


shared by many others, who thronged around him 
and were loud in their expressions of satisfaction 
at the unlooked-for turn which his liberality had 
given to the proceedings of the day. 

Mr. Calendar waited for the excitement to 
subside, and then said to his client, in the hearing 
of Mr. Bender, who seemed half disposed to 
remonstrate against the injilstice which he had 
suffered : 

“ You have had your own way. Limber, as you 
generally do, and I congratulate you. There is 
one thing you must see to in order to vindicate 
the majesty of the law. There is a section of 
the statute which I did not read to you, declaring 
all raffling contracts void, so that the winner is 
not entitled to the prize. She may have her dol- 
lar back, but not the doll. Tell Mrs. Limber this. 
I think you told me the girl had gone away.” 

“Yes, and the doll is in Mrs. Limber’s cus- 
tody.” 

“ By all means let her keep it safely ; it would 
be a thousand pities if she slipped through 3’our 
fingers now.” 

“ Come with me. Calendar, and take your din- 
ner with us, and explain this and all the rest to 
my wife. I want Folio, too,” and Mr. Limber 
hurried to arrest the successful attorney for the 


FIAT JTJSTITIA. 


141 


overseers, who was descending the steps with 
Sam, and vainly endeavoring to answer the ques- 
tions with which he was plying him, 

Mr. Bender lingered with his friend in the 
precincts of the temple of justice. He was in an 
uncomfortable frame of mind. The ten-dollar 
note which he had taken from his pocket as he 
closed his address, for the purpose of paying his 
score, and which the old lawyer had advised him 
to put up again, was twisted around the fore- 
finger of his right hand and he looked at it with 
an uneasy expression. He was the last man to 
quit the court-house. He paused in the vesti- 
bule to relight his cigar, saying to his companion 
as he did so — 

“ I’ve half a mind to light it with this green- 
back ; let’s go to the Shades and take a drink.” 

The Spindle Shades, although a tippling-house 
and justly under the ban of reputable society, 
was a comparatively decent and quiet place of 
resort, frequented by a better class of drinkers 
than those who haunted the lower dram-shops of 
Spindle. Mr. Bender and his friend were evi- 
dently not chance customers, and a certain degree 
of familiarity with their tastes was exhibited 
by the bar-tender, as he anticipated their wants 
in a manner satisfactory to both* 

10 


142 


MES. LIMBEe’s EAEFLE. 

“ Been to court ? ” asked the bar-tender as the 
empty glasses were set down. 

“Just come from there,” said Mr. Bender, 
“ and you don’t catch me in another. It’s a kind 
of game where an honest sport has no chance.” 

“ I can tell you something that likely you 
don’t know,” said the bar-keeper, polishing the 
surface of his counter ; “ that church doll, as they 
call it, belongs here and is a-coming here.” 

“ How is that ? ” said Mr. Bender, wdth evi- 
dent surprise and no little curiosity. 

“ Just this way. It was won in the raffle by 
Bridget Looney, Mrs. Looney that is, you know, 
Pat’s wife, and she writes a letter from New 
York, it’s Pat’s writing be sure, and he was al- 
ways a bit of a scholar, and her name is signed 
to it, and she gives the doll over to the Spindle 
Shades ; and this morning the letter came, and 
the boss has sent two of us up to Limber’s to fetch 
it. They’ll be here pretty soon.” 

“ What do you want of a doll here ? ” said 
Mr. Bender. 

“ Why, you see it’s ‘ Pat Looney’s luck,’ they 
call it, for his number carried it off from all the 
big folks, and Pat promised it and his wife to set 
it up here as a kind of memory-piece, seeing he’s 
gone away for good ; and we are going to put it 


FIAT JUSTITIA. 


143 


just here,” said the bar-tender, pointing to a 
wooden shelf projecting from the base of the mir- 
ror behind him, a bad eminence on which Centu- 
ria might rest, her form reflected at full length 
in the polished surface at her back, with transient 
glimpses of her face and front in the silver-plated 
mountings of the ale-pumps at her feet, flanked 
on either side by the tall glasses whose reversed 
bases supported lemons of enormous size, while 
brilliant tankards and colored bottles of various 
hues formed a resplendent pyramid, on whose 
apex she would seem to stand or soar. 

“ Pat Looney’s luck ! ” sneered Mr. Bender ; 
“ she has brought bad luck to whoever has had 
to do with her.” 

“ Not to Pat,” said the bar-tender, as he swept 
his cloth over the smooth surface of his counter, 
for a final polish, “ he always comes out ahead ; 
bless you, if he was run for guv’ner he’d be elected. 
He is up for Assemblyman now, and sure to win.” 

“ Who has gone for the doll ? ” asked Mr. 
Bender, twirling the still unpocketed bank-note 
in his fingers. 

“ The twins. They were sitting around here 
and the boss gave them the letter, and they 
started half an hour ago. It’s a bit of a walk c ut 
to Limber’s and back.” 


144 


MRS. limber’s raffle. 


“ The twins ” was the familiar designation of 
a couple of good-for-naughts, in no way related 
to each other, except by the natural tie of deprav- 
ity, who made the Spindle Shades their head- 
quarters, and were proud of being regarded as 
its most faithful allies. 

“ Mr. Bender, without a word further, paid 
his reckoning and left the place. When he gained 
the street he paused, took a few slowly-drawn 
whiffs of his cigar, and then said to his com- 
panion, in a solemn tone : 

“ It’s my judgment these fellows are not en- 
titled to that doll. The raffle is broke up by law, 
the forfeits paid, the stakes can’t be paid over. 
It ain’t rulable. There’s no law for it.” 

“ What’s all that to you ? ” said his friend. 
“ Haven’t you had law enough about that blessed 
raffle ? ” 

“Yes,” said Mr. Bender, “ too much law and 
no justice. Come along, and we will make things 
right yet. You and I can meet these precious 
twins half-way, and take the doll from them and 
return it to the owner. Pat Looney’s wife has 
no right to it, no more than you or I. She can 
have her dollar, but not the doll ; these were 
Squire Calendar’s very words, and I’ll swear to 
them.” 


FIAT JU8TITIA. 


145 


“ I heard all that,” said his friend, “ but what 
gives you the right to take it away from them 
that has it ? It will be grand larceny, or assault 
and battery, and that boy or somebody will be 
after you, sharp.” 

Mr, Bender untwisted the greenback, and 
folded it so as to display its figures. 

“ Seems to me,” said he, “ as though this ten 
dollars was owing to some one, I don’t know 
who. When we meet the twins, we’ll tell them 
the raflOie is off, and they’ve got stolen property 
in hand, and it’ll be six months in the county jail 
for each of them, and they had better get rid of 
it, and take ten dollars in exchange, and who 
should ever know that they got the doll, if they 
have got it, seeing there’s no right to have it ? 
Come on,” repeated Mr. Bender, as the success 
of his project seemed all the clearer from his lucid 
statement of it. 

“ But there’s a lady in the case,” urged his 
cautious friend, “ even if her name is Bridget.” 

“ The lady in the case,” said Mr. Bender, “ is 
Mrs. Limber, You may come or not, as you 
please, but I am going. I’ll see justice done. 
Oh, you are coming. Well, we are on the home- 
stretch now and a clear field.” 


CHAPTER X. 


APOTHEOSIS OF CENTUEIA. 

Mrs. Limber had ample opportunity, after 
the departure of her husband and children for 
the court-house, to review the checkered course 
of events which had its origin in the ill-fated 
raffle. She saw, clearly enough, that her hus- 
band’s warning voice, even though it was but an 
echo of Mr. Proser’s bodements, might better 
have been heeded. At the same time she found 
consolation in the purity of her intentions in be- 
half of St. Parvus, and in the certainty that no 
human being, not even Mr. Proser himself, could 
have foreseen that the horrid monster of litiga- 
tion, now stalking through the peaceful homes 
of Spindle, would have been evoked, as by some 
wicked enchantment, from her innocent scheme. 
The closing scenes of the fair were an abiding 
source of discomfort. She had parted from her 
friend Mrs. Chancel, if not in anger, at least in 
irritation, and she felt that this too was partly 


APOTHEOSIS OF CENTURIA. 


14T 


due to her own want of candor. She had not 
dealt fairly with her friend. The more she re- 
flected the more vexed she became with herself, 
and, at last, yielding to a sudden impulse, she 
resolved to go at once to Mrs. Chancel, and tell 
her the whole story of Pat Looney’s luck and 
Bridget’s dire revenge, so that, whatever might 
be the issue of the trial, she should be at peace, 
with her friend. 

A dozen steps from her gate she encountered 
Mrs. Chancel herself. A corresponding stress of 
emotions, and the pressure of self-reproach for 
her parting sarcasm, and, even more than these, 
the spur of new and startling discoveries, had 
driven her from the rectory to Mrs. Limber. The 
two friends embraced each other, and the shadow 
of their misunderstanding was lost in the sun- 
shine of a cordial greeting, renewed in Mrs. Lim- 
ber’s parlor, with fresh demonstrations of affec- 
tion, unhindered by furs and wraps. The two 
ladies seated themselves, side by side, on a sofa 
before the fire, and Mrs. Chancel, as her manner 
was, began the conversation. 

“ So it is your husband, my dear, who has 
gone and turned State’s evidence, and given all 
this information to the overseers of the poor, 
and got himself, and you, and all of us sued. It 


148 


MES. LBIBER^S KAFFLE. 


is his latest invention, and surely the newest, if 
not the most useful. I never imagined he was 
such a genius I ” 

Mrs. Limber looked unutterable ignorance and 
unmistakable curiosity. 

“ You must know, then ; and, of course, there 
was no way of your guessing it before, that Mr, 
Limber has been to the rectory this morning, 
and confessed all to Mr. Chancel.” 

“ All what ? ” gasped Mrs. Limber. 

“ All this,” said Mrs. Chancel, that, after he 
saw we were fully bent and determined on the 
rafl0ie — and you know, dear, we were fully bent 
and determined on it — and after he had been to 
my husband to get him to stop it, and he, poor 
man, couldn’t exactly grasp the subject, as he 
says, then Mr. Limber went to John Calendar, 
and, without letting him into any of his plans, 
got from him all the law about raffles and lot 
teries out of the Revised Statutes and the con- 
stitution, and I don’t know how many more 
musty law-books, all mixed up with John Calen- 
dar’s crotchets, I suppose. And then came Mr. 
Limber’s grand invention ; having made the dis- 
covery that the overseers of the poor could sue 
everybody concerned in the raffle, he devised the 
plan of having everybody sued, himself included ; 


APOTHEOSIS OF CENTTJRIA. 


149 


then, to show that it was all his doing, and no 
one’s else, he made Mr. Calendar give him a re- 
ceipted bill, with the date, so that, if need be, he 
could prove that this was all planned before the 
raffle, and then off he went to Huge Boulder, as 
the boys call him, the head-man of the overseers 
of the poor, and showed him the law, and told 
him that if the new hospital was ever to be built, 
here was the way to get the money, and you 
may be sure he jumped at it, and so did they all. 
Mr. Calendar was their lawyer, but he mistrusted 
what your husband was about, and wrote to the 
overseers of the poor to employ Dick Folio, if 
they had any suits to bring. So Dick was the 
attorney, and your husband contrived that he 
should buy the subscription-list, so as to make 
sure of the names, and so as to have the papers 
all printed at night, and everybody caught next 
morning, as they were, all but Bridget Looney ; 
and then, last of all, and best of all, what does 
he do, after letting every one fret and fume for a 
week, but come into court and pay all the penal- 
ties out of his own pocket, just as he told Mr. 
Chancel, early this morning, he meant to do, arid 
he has paid the balance of the church debt be- 
sides, and he means to pay whatever more the 
hospital may cost, though that is a secret, and 


150 


MES. limber’s raffle. 


all this is Mr. Limber’s Christmas-present to the 
poor of Spindle ! ” 

“ It is just like him,” burst out Mrs. Limber, 
her eyes as full as her heart. Then she began 
to cry with all her might. 

Up to that moment Mrs. Chancel had not 
thought of such a thing as crying over this good 
news, but she could not resist the contagion, and 
her tears flowed faster than her friend’s. 

Mrs. Limber suddenly stopped crying. 

“ I declare we are two fools. He has made 
you and me and all of us ridiculous. Dear me I 
what shall we do with these husbands ? ” 

“ After all,” said Mrs Chancel, with dry eyes, 
“ isn’t it just a little bit nearer the truth that we 
have made ourselves ridiculous ? ” 

“ Perhaps so,” said Mrs. Limber ; “ and that 
is ever so much better than being made ridicu- 
lous by anybody else.” 

“ Another thing, my dear,” said Mrs Chancel, 
“your husband has converted Mr. Chancel en- 
tirely. He says we and he were all wrong, and 
Mr. Limber was all right, that the raffle never 
ought to have been, and that he should have in- 
terfered and broken it up when he was applied to. 
He is perfectly in love with Mr» Limber. Do you 


APOTHEOSIS OF OENTUEIA. 


151 


know, I think what won his heart was his com- 
ing, as it were, to confessional.” 

“ But,” said Mrs. Limber, “ I thought you 
said just now that Mr. Chancel confessed he was 
all wrong, and Mr. Limber was all right.” 

“ Oh, dear, yes, but he only confessed to me — 
husband to wife — and that is a kind of confession, 
you know, which even Presbyterians believe in.” 

“ At all events,” said Mrs. Limber, “ confess- 
ing one to another is Scriptural, and I have a 
confession to make to j^ou. I was coming to 
make it when we met at my gate ; ” and then 
Mrs. Limber unburdened her conscience and told 
the whole story of her encounter with Bridget, 
and of the subsequent plots and machinations of 
that unblushing bride. 

“ I never felt easy about the raffle,” said Mrs, 
Limber, “ from the moment of my scene with 
Bridget ; but who could liave dreamed of what 
has happened ? ” 

“ Who, indeed ? ” chimed in Mrs. Chancel ; 
“ but, my dear child,” she suddenly exclaimed, 
looking in the direction of the front-windows, 
which opened to the floor, “ what in the world 
are those two men coming here for?” and in 
great alarm she pointed out what seemed to her 
the worst-looking couple she had ever seen in 


152 


MRS. limber’s raffle. 


Spindle. The truth is, that daylight was particu- 
larly unbecoming to the twins, who, like many 
fashionable young ladies, looked their w'orst in 
the morning, and, as they reconnoitred the 
premises with an aggressive air, intent on their 
mission as the escort of Centuria to the Shades, 
the two ladies were on the brink of a panic. 

‘‘ What shall we do ? ” cried Mrs. Chancel ; 
“ are there no men in the house ? ” 

Mrs. Limber hurriedly closed the inside shut- 
ters and rang the bell. She then ran to fasten 
the chain of the front-door, but it had so chanced 
that when the two ladies entered the house they 
had inadvertently left the door unlatched, and 
the wind had opened it, so that, as the mistress 
of the mansion stepped into the hall, she found 
herself face to face with the invaders. They had 
paused on the door-step, and taken an attitude 
sufficiently pacific and respectful to disarm any 
suspicion that they were the common enemies of 
mankind. Both were smoking, but it was evi- 
dently the pipe of peace whose odors were waft- 
ed toward Mrs. Limber, as she received the salu- 
tations which were tendered her. One of the 
two made a slight advance, holding forth a let- 
ter, which Mrs. Limber, with a spasm of courage, 
actually took. 


APOTHEOSIS OF CENTUEIA. 


153 


At this juncture, the housemaid appeared in 
answer to the bell, and motioning to her to re- 
main on guard, Mrs. Limber reentered the parlor, 
wondering at her own daring, and exciting the 
equal wonder of Mrs. Chancel bj exhibiting the 
letter of which she had been made the recipient. 
It was addressed to Mrs. Limber, and under the 
concentrated gaze of her own eyes, and those of 
Mrs. Chancel, its contents were soon disclosed as 
follows : 

New York, December 15, 18 — . 

Mbs. David Limber: 

If my chance wins, it is number 63, and Miss Bes- 
sie has my money, please will you deliver the doll to 
the gentleman which brings this, it is in full of all 
demands, and it is a free Christmas gift to the Spindle 
Shades from me and Pat, which he sends his respects, 
baring no malice, and I am the same, no more at pres- 
ent, from your friend, 

Bridget Looney. 

“ Oh, get it, get it quick ! ” said Mrs. Limber. 
“ No, stay here and I will go for it.” 

“Let me go,” said Mrs. Chancel, who saw 
that any reopening of the raffle gave a new shock 
to Mrs. Limber’s nerves. “ Where is it ? ” 

“In my cedar-closet, on the top shelf, right- 
hand side, in a paper box. The key is in the 


154 


MRS. LIMBER S RAFFLE. 


basket on the bureau in my bedroom. I shall 
only be too, too glad when it is out of the 
house.” 

Mrs. Chancel mounted the stairs, found the 
key ^nd the box, and with her own hands de- 
livered Centuria to the twins. She thought of 
the murderers in the Tower and of the babes in 
the wood, and of all the braces of stage-villains 
she had ever read of or heard of or seen, and 
shuddered at her own temerity. It never oc- 
curred to her to appreciate the involuntary trib- 
ute which the two scamps paid to her sex, in re- 
ceiving the package from her, without scrutiny 
or question, never doubting that a lady, such as 
she, was to be trusted with implicit faith. 

The envoys of the winning, if not the win- 
some bride, took their departure, wholly uncon- 
scious of the terror with which they had inspired 
the ladies, and of the admiration they had excited 
in the housemaid, who follow’ed their retreating 
footsteps with her eyes, and with a tender regret 
that the rapid movements of Mrs. Chancel had 
nipped in the bud an acquaintance which had 
progressed no further than the preliminary stages 
of two winks and a double blush. 

The door had been closed for about half an 
hour on Centuria and her new custodians, when 


APOTHEOSIS OF CENTXJRIA. 


155 


Mr. Limber, Sam, and Bessie, accompanied by 
Mr. Calendar, Dick Folio, and the rector, whom 
they had overtaken in their rapid walk from the 
court-house, mounted the steps. Mrs. Limber 
had recovered from the shock of her last en- 
counter, sufficiently to be in readiness for a meet- 
ing to which her husband had looked forward 
with no little uneasiness. The presence of Mrs. 
Chancel at once assured him that his wife knew 
all, the smiles which greeted him augured well, 
and in an instant all doubts were dispelled, as her 
arms were thrown around his neck, and he heard 
her saying, her voice broken by a succession of 
little sobs and little kisses, “Do forgive me, 
dear husband, and — and, I will forgive you.” 

David Limber was a man of few words and 
few kisses. He gave his wife a hearty hug, and 
sat down beside her on the sofa. It was mani- 
fest that, whoever was to forgive, and whatever 
was to be forgiven, the transaction was com- 
plete. 

While this little interlude was in progress, 
Mrs. Chancel had been engaged in questioning 
the new-comers as to the incidents of the trial. 
Mr. Limber interrupted a graphic description 
which Dick Folio was giving to his wife of Jus- 
tice Hazey’s proceedings, by repeating Mr. Cal- 


156 


MRS. limber’s RAFFLE. 


endar’s injunction to keep possession of the 
doll. 

“ You must see to it, Martha, that it is not 
given up to Bridget Looney. The raffle was ille 
gal and void. She is to have her money back but 
not the doll ; so be sure that she does not get it.” 

“ But she has got it already,” shrieked Mrs, 
Limber. “ It is but just now, two dreadful, desper- 
ate men came and demanded it, and took it away. 
What could we do ? We were alone in the 
house with the women. Oh, dear ! I am the most 
wretched creature alive. Is there to be no end 
to my misery ? ” 

‘‘ Two men are not Bridget,” said Sam ; “ we 
know that she is away and cannot be found.” 

“ They had her written order,” said Mrs, Chan- 
cel, producing it as she spoke. 

Sam took the letter and read it aloud. “ It 
is plain enough, said he, as he folded it again, 
“ Centuria has gone to the Spindle Shades. She 
is a trophy of the luck of the Looneys. She will 
be metamorphosed into a divinity of drinks.” 

“ What a cruel apotheosis for a Christian doll,” 
cried Mrs. Chancel, “ and to think that I gave her 
with my own hands ! ” 

“ But it was all my fault,” sobbed Mrs. Lim- 
ber. 


APOTHEOSIS OF OENTUEIA. 


157 


A sudden outcry from Bessie, who had turned 
to the window to hide her vexation, broke in 
upon her mother’s lament. 

“ Are they coming again ? ” groaned Mrs. 
Chancel, before whose mental vision the twins 
were in constant view. 

“ No, but Mr. Bender and another man are 
coming, and I do believe they are bringing Cen- 
turia back. Oh, it is too good to be true, but at 
all events they have got the box. — Run, Sam 1 oh, 
if it should be empty after all I ” 

Sam was at the street-door in an instant. He 
threw it wide open. Mr. Bender and his friend 
— conquering heroes evidently — made a trium- 
phal entry into the parlor and deposited their 
burden on the centre-table. No fears now that 
the box was empty. It was plain enough that 
there had been a rescue, and the good news, beam- 
ing from every part of Mr. Bender’s rosy face, 
hardly needed his confirmatory announcement : 
“ There is the stakes, and the bets if any are 
all off.” 

There was a general chorus of applause as the 
cover was removed from the box, and the assur- 
ance of Centuria’s deliverance from the base uses 
to which she had been destined by the house of 
Looney was made doubly sure by the sight 
11 


158 


MRS . limber’s raffle. 


of her waxen face and untarnished Parisian cos- 
tume, 

“Tell us all about it,” cried Bessie to Mr. 
Bender, who was her second hero of the day, and, 
thus solicited, that gentleman, wdth modest pride, 
described his outraged feelings when he heard, 
during his momentary visit to the Spindle Shades, 
of the fate which was inpendiug over Centuria, 
and his sudden resolve that justice should be 
done by her summary recapture and restoration 
to Mrs, Limber, and how he had successfully 
achieved this result by a little strategy and the 
outlay of the ten dollars which he had succeeded 
in paying as his score, in spite of Mr. Limber. 

“ This crowns the day,” said Mr. Limber, brim- 
ful of satisfaction. “ Mr. Bender and his friend 
must join us at dinner ; you are all my guests, I 
cannot spare one.” 

Sam was not entirely at ease ; he turned to 
Mr. Calendar with an anxious look, and the ques- 
tion — 

“ May they not attempt to replevy her ? ” 

“ Dear Sam,” said Bessie, “ what do you mean, 
you are as bad as that awful old man at the court- 
house. What is it to replevy a thing? Is it 
anything dreadful ? ” 

“ It is a kind of grab-game, which you play at 


APOTHEOSIS OF CENTURIA. 


159 


with sheriffs and coroners,” said Sam. “ If Brid- 
get Looney replevies the doll, she will send the 
sheriff here to claim it as her property, and he will 
take it off ; and then we can send the coroner after 
the sheriff and take it back as our property ; and 
then — ” 

“ Sam ! ” broke in Mrs. Limber, “ is this 
going to end in a coroner’s inquest ? Is there to 
be a post mortem over this poor victim of the 
law? Dear me! what shall we do with these 
lawyers ? ” 

“ No,” said Mr. Calendar, “ this is the end. 
Bridget Looney cannot replevy because she never 
had any legal ownership. The doll belongs to 
the original owner.” 

“ And who is the original owner ? ” asked Sam. 

“ I should say Mrs. Chancel,” said Mrs. Lim- 
ber. “ She is the owner, it was her doll.” 

“ And I,” said Mrs. Chancel, “ should say Mrs. 
Limber, for I gave the doll to her.” 

“ But it was given for a purpose which has 
failed,” said Sam. 

“ Not at all,” said the rector; “ the church has 
received her full value.” 

“ Oh, dear 1 ” sighed Bessie, “ here is another 
dreadful trouble. It is going to be impossible to 
find an owner for Centuria.” 


160 


MRS. LIMBER S RAFFLE. 


“ Tt is a pure question of law,” observed Mr. 
Folio, sententiouslj ; “ why not leave it to Mr. 
Calendar’s decision ? ” 

“ There is no precedent to guide me,” said 
Mr. Calendar, “ unless our good friend the rec- 
tor finds one in the judgment of Solomon. We 
might divide Centuria, and give one half to Mrs. 
Limber and the other half to Mrs. Chancel.” 

“ Oh, no, no ! ” cried both ladies at once. 

“ It would be very easy to settle this,” said 
Mr. Bender, “ by a toss up, heads or tails, but, 
says you, there’s the Revived Statues again, and 
where are we ? ” 

Allow me to make a suggestion,” said Mr. 
Calendar. “ Centuria has been rescued from the 
bar-room by the ingenuity and courage of our 
friend Mr. Bender ; let her be enshrined in the 
hospital.” 

“ By all means,” exclaimed Mr. Limber ; “ it 
is her just due. She is its real founder, and she 
shall have a niche in the main entrance.” 

“ It will be a charming symbol,” said Mr. 
Chancel ; “ she will represent the angel of chari- 
ty with her wings clipped by the sword of jus- 
tice.” 

“ Justice Hazey,” suggested Sam, in a stage 
whisper, which luckily the rector did not hear 
and which Mrs. Chancel forgave. 


APOTHEOSIS OF CENTURIA. 


IGl 


“ She will perpetuate Mr. Bender’s gallantry,” 
said Mr. Limber. .% 

“And Mr. Folio’s legal victory,” said Mr. 
Calendar. 

“ And Mr. Limber’s benevolence,” said Mrs. 
Chancel. 

“ And my folly,” said Mrs. Limber. 

“ And its surprisingly good results,” said 
Mrs. Chancel. “ If folly pays church debts and 
builds hospitals, it seems like a very good sub- 
stitute for wisdom.” 

“ Not folly, after all,” said Mrs. Limber, “ but 
folly well punished and well forgiven.” 

She took the rector’s arm and led the way to 
dinner. 

Dick Folio and Bessie lingered in the bay- 
window of the parlor, and were late in taking 
their places at the dinner-table. What passed 
between them during that brief interview does 
not concern our story, but the young lawyer 
has been heard to declare that the best outcome 
of Mrs. Limber’s raffle was the winning for him- 
self of a lawful prize in the lottery of life. 

“ One thing is certain,” said David Limber at 
the close of an evening spent with Mr. Calendar 
over the plans for the new hospital, which, as it 


162 


MRS. limber’s raffle. 


grew toward completion, grew also in the pro- 
portions of its founder’s liberality, and made his 
Christmas-gift a lasting memorial of his name — 
“ one thing is certain, we may have man)^ strange 
experiences, there may be strikes and floods, 
fires, pestilence and famine, tornadoes and earth- 
quakes, but there will never be another raffle in 
Spindle, at least among decent people.” 

“Nor would there be anywhere else,” said 
Mr. Calendar, “ if every one were told the story 
of Mrs. Limber’s raffle, and would lay to heart its 
moral, that the devil’s edge-tools are sure to cut, 
no matter how dexterously handled by saint or 
sinner.” 


NOTE. 


Page 67. The aiding of public objects by means of 
State lotteries has been, in this country, an imitation of 
the methods of Continental Europe and of Great Britain. 
Up to the year 1826, lotteries for public improvements 
and for benevolent purposes were authorized in England, 
and both the Colonial and State legislatures in America 
followed the example of the mother country. 

To the institutions mentioned by Mr. Calendar as 
having been aided by public lotteries must be added 
Princeton College, which, strangely enough, appears to 
have had such help from a lottery authorized by the State 
of Connecticut in 1753. I have in my possession a ticket 
of this lottery, printed in the style of the pre-Revolution- 
ary period. It reads as follows : 

“ Connecticut Lottery. 

For the Benefit of the College of New Jersey. 

1753 Numb. 2495. 

Ticket entitles the Possessor to such Prize as may 
be drawn against its Number, (if demanded within 
six Months after the Drawing is finished) subject to a 
Deduction of 15 per Cent. 

E John Lloyd.” 


THE END. 



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